This REU site brings eight undergraduate students to Rutgers each summer for a ten-week research internship in the area of perceptual science and technology. This research area centers on the challenges and opportunities of building novel computational models that systems may use to understand their environment and act intelligently in it. The area affords a range of research methods, including designing algorithms, building systems, gathering and analyzing data, and understanding intelligence in its human context. Research projects cover topics such as: computational approaches to the perception and recognition of objects, faces, scenes, depth and motion; perceptual categorization and perceptual decisions; data mining and statistical analysis of perceptual input; search, attention, and visuo-motor learning; visual experiences in human-computer interaction; and computational depiction and design. The site strives to recruit and support interns from underrepresented populations and to foster collaborative research. Accepted students work closely with a faculty mentor from drafting a project plan through carrying out and presenting their research. Each project includes a pathway for two or more interns to bring different results, data, or methods to bear on a shared problem. The site holds workshops on research practice, research ethics, skills for collaboration, and careers in perceptual science and technology. Social events reinforce the sense of community. The integrative, collaborative focus of the site offers interns a deeper sense of range of the different careers, topics and work environments available to them, and allows them to fine-tune a match between their research plans and their personal goals, backgrounds, and interests.
The site is co-funded by the Department of Defense in partnership with the NSF REU program
