PARADIM, the Platform for the Accelerated Realization, Analysis, and Discovery of Interface Materials, is a new national user facility at Cornell dedicated to the discovery and fabrication of materials with unprecedented properties that do not exist in nature. Each year we invite selected interns interested in not only growing new materials targeted by PARADIM users, but also in optimizing and improving the techniques used to grow, characterize, and provide theoretical guidance leading to their discovery and optimization. Molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) and MOCVD (metal-organic chemical vapor deposition) are state-of-the-art thin film growth techniques with atomic precision, and we have unique systems with world class capability. Electronic and structural properties are characterized at PARADIM using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), x-ray diffraction (XRD), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Specifically, PARADIM REU students will use first principles techniques to provide theoretical guidance in the design of oxides and chalcogenides, they will synthesize oxides and chalcogenides in thin film form using MBE and MOCVD, they will characterize them using ARPES and XRD, and they will improve PARADIM hardware and capabilities.