This CISE REU Site award renews an exemplary site at the University of South Florida. The site includes a strong research component combined with professional development opportunities for the participating students. Students will have the opportunity explore research topics related to ubiquitous sensing, which includes current topics such as fixed and mobile sensing networks, location-based services, participatory sensing, and human-centric sensing applications. The primary goals of this renewal are to achieve systematic increase of the graduation rate of undergraduate students as well as the enrollment numbers in graduate programs in Computer Science, to the recruit minority students, and to serve as a bridge program for community colleges students to pursue computer science degrees in 4-yr universities. The team will continue the successful strategies used to recruit Hispanics students from a broader group of institutions in Puerto Rico, Florida, and Latin America, and African-American students from their partner institutions.
The intellectual merit of this proposal in the potential to contribute to the current research body related to ubiquitous sensing. Ubiquitous sensing is an area of current interest that is well-suited to undergraduate research productivity. Students will be involved in state-of-the-art research problems and will learn how to use current tools and techniques to solve those problems.
The broader impacts of this project revolve around the ambitious outreach activities the project plans to undertake. This REU site will provide students with research opportunities in areas not available at their home institutions. The program will directly address a national concern, which is the participation and enrollment of students from under-represented groups in graduate school and research in computer science. The project will establish stronger ties between the involved institutions for more collaboration in the future, including connections with community colleges.
