The SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research at Florida) program is a partnership between the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering and Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) programs within individual departments at the University of Florida. The Summer 2026 SURF model will only be supporting students from REU programs. This includes UF engineering departments, faculty, and PIs who have already received a REU grant for a small cohort of students, or REU supplements for individual students. SURF and REU support provides the opportunity to work with a premier faculty adviser and a senior Ph.D. student and/or Postdoc mentor. Students will engage in research and spend in-depth time furthering their career path, which may include applying and enrolling in a Ph.D. program at the University of Florida.
Summer 2026 REU Programs Partnering with SURF (confirmed federal grant funding)
AHA CRSSTP: American Heart Association Cardiovascular Research Summer Scholar Training Program
https://sites.google.com/view/allenresearchgroup/aha-summer-training-program
- Research Areas
- Engineering strategies to address challenges in vascular health
Assured Autonomy and Networking REU
New Program – Information Coming Soon!
Astronomy REU
- Research Areas
- Galaxy Formation & Evolution
- Cosmology & Large Scale Structure
- Exoplanets
- Star Formation in the Milky Way & Nearby Galaxies
- The First Stars
- Compact Objects, & LIGO Electromagnetic Counterparts
- The Interstellar Medium
Engineering for Healthcare REU
http://reuengineeringforhealthcare.mae.ufl.edu/ – Summer 2026 application coming soon!
- Research Areas
- Surface Engineering
- Biofluids
- Biotransport
- Thin films
- Biomedical Photonics
- Rehabilitative Engineering
- Biomechanics
- Mechanobiology
- Soft Tissue Mechanics
- Hydrogels
NSF IoT4Ag ERC REU: Internet of Things for Precision Agriculture
https://iot4ag.us/reu-program – Summer 2026 application opening in December
- Research Areas
- Acoustics & Fluid Mechanics
- Electromagnetics & Photonics
- Materials, Manufacturing, & Modeling
- Chemical & Biomedical Systems
- Power & Energy Systems
USDA REEU: Fostering Circularity & Digitalization Skills (CD-Skills) in Future Agri-Food Systems
- Research Areas
- Conversion of biological waste into value-added products through microbial bioprocessing
- Circular economy and bioeconomy initiatives in food systems: Food loss and waste modeling, digitalization approaches
- Identifying genetic basis of quality traits through gene editing and machine learning approaches
- Innovative approaches to enhancing Cowpea Varieties
- Multi-faceted sustainable seafood supply chain management practices and economics
- Utilization of Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT) for sustainable crop modeling and integrated management pathways
- Agent-based modeling to measure and monitor household food loss and waste
- Consumer perceptions and attitudes of the sustainable food “bio-inks” utilized in 3D food printing
- Smart sensing systems to identify in-field spatial variability of cropping factors
- Designing high-throughput phenotyping methods to characterize salt-tolerant genotypes of Brassicaceae
REU Programs Possibly Partnering with SURF in Summer 2026 (waiting on federal grant funding)
NSF Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) REU
https://www.designsafe-ci.org/learning-center/reu
- Research Areas
- Natural Disasters and/or Natural Hazards’ Impact on Society
- Mulit-Hazard Engineering
- Reconnaissance
- Cyberinfrastructure
- Data Management
- Simulation
- Social Science Research
- Highly applicable for Civil Engineering & Mechanical Engineering majors
NSF Secure, Accessible, & Sustainable Transportation (SAST) REU
https://iot.institute.ufl.edu/outreach/reu-site-secure-accessible-and-sustainable-transportation
- Research Areas
- Secure Cooperative Transportation Applications (platooning, intersecting management)
- AI-Based Accessible Transportation Infrastructure (autonomous vehicles)
- Sustainability in Automated Transportation (electric vehicles, drones)