The objective of Cleveland State University’s (CSU) REU site is to involve rising sophomore and junior physics and engineering majors, recruited particularly from underrepresented groups, in interdisciplinary research projects within soft matter science and engineering. Soft matter is a group of materials including liquid crystals, colloids, polymers, surfactants, and biological matter, which structurally reorganize in response to even slight changes in temperature and other environmental conditions. Scientists and engineers harness the unique properties of soft matter in applications ranging from drug delivery to organic solar cells to microfluidic devices. CSU’s soft matter REU students contribute to such cutting-edge soft matter research. Each REU student works directly with 1-2 facu