This International Research Experience for Students (IRES) activity will link researchers and mentors at Saint Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, with counterparts at the Silesian University in the Czech Republic and the University of Lodz in Poland. Collaboratively they will carry out a program that provides international research experiences for U.S. undergraduate students in real analysis. On the U.S. side, co-principal investigators Paul Humke and Bruce Hanson from Saint Olaf will work with Jaroslav Smital at Silesian University, CR, and Wladyslaw Wilczynski in Poland to manage a ten week, team-based approach to work in real analysis as a spring board for doctoral research in a range of areas, including set theory and logic.
At each host institution, the student scholars will be assigned a specific mentor who will help select an appropriate research project and oversee their work. The shared goal is to introduce the participating undergraduates to a highly integrated collaborative research group through mentoring, seminars, colloquia, and frequent informal discussions of current issues in mathematics. The U.S. students will be prepared by the faculty at St. Olaf for their international experience and when in Europe will continue by meeting frequently with mentors to follow a course of research and study. The real value of the IRES scholarship will be the students' apprenticeship in the collective research life of these international institutions.
This IRES project in real analysis mathematics fulfills the program objective of developing global scientists and engineers by enabling experts in the United States and Central Europe to combine complementary talents and share research and education resources in an area of strong mutual interest and competence. Broader impacts include the introduction of U.S. undergraduate students to the global mathematics research community through a program of study at Polish and Czech institutions and direct involvement in their mentors' current research.
