The Research Experiences in the Mathematical Sciences for the Undergraduate Faculty (REMS-UF) Workshop will provide faculty members of undergraduate institutions and universities having limited research activity the opportunity to have a research experience that will lead to research projects with undergraduates. Participants will investigate open problems that are suitable for undergraduate projects at their own institutions. Four research mathematicians who have experience doing research with undergraduate students will lead the workshop and present problems in graph theory, number theory, algebra, and linear algebra. The workshop will begin with lectures and background information on the problems to be investigated. The participants will work in teams on the problems and present their results to the entire group. Numerical experiments and computational investigations are crucial to much of the research done with undergraduates. Training sessions will be provided on the use and applications of the free open-source mathematics software Sage.
The primary goal of the workshop is the engagement of participants in mathematical problems that they can work on with their students; this is not necessarily expected to lead to publishable research. A secondary goal is to forge collaborations among the project leaders and participants that will lead to active involvement of some participants in publishable research through participation in a research group.
The workshop will be held at the American Institute of Mathematics in Palo Alto, CA on July 20-24, 2009. Participants will receive full funding for travel, accommodations, and a per diem.
