The Visiting and Early Scholars’ Experiences in Mathematics Research Experiences for Undergraduates (VERSEIM-REU) is an intensive ten-week summer research program in applied and pure mathematics at Tufts University. For each of the next three years, nine VERSEIM scholars will be admitted and will be mentored by a team of faculty and advanced graduate students. VERSEIM scholars will meet weekly and informally discuss progress, questions, and articles, as well as participate in ongoing professional and academic development. They will present their work to the group in the middle of the program and in a closing ceremony. Scholars will also meet regularly with other students for social and cohort-building activities. The experience will provide participants knowledge and skills to navigate graduate school and careers in the mathematical sciences. The program will recruit students from groups underrepresented in mathematics in partnership with the Tufts Visiting and Early Research Scholars' Experience (VERSE) program.
The program will introduce the VERSEIM scholars early in their mathematical education to engaging projects designed to develop their talents in research. Though some of the underlying questions, based on ongoing research of the faculty involved, are beyond the level of most undergraduate students, the Tufts team has a great deal of experience in isolating specific questions and research tasks that excite students' imagination and allow them to explore the problems experimentally. Scholars’ experimental findings would lead to conjectures and further explorations, some of which will yield generalizable conclusions and proofs for the original problems. Scholars will choose among three research topics in fields including number theory (patterns in the last digits of prime numbers), geometric group theory (computational aspects of geometric group theory), pure, applied, and numerical harmonic analysis (groups and integral geometry, frame theory), machine learning (analysis of high-dimensional molecular dynamics simulations), mathematical neuroscience (functional significance of brain rhythms), numerical analysis (numerical methods for PDEs), mathematical ecology (predator-prey dynamics in fluctuating environments), and tomography (algorithms and theory in limited data tomography).
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
