This award renews a highly successful CISE Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site at Harvey Mudd College. A team of computer science faculty mentors have designed a 10 week summer REU program in the broad area of computer systems. The summer research activity gives students a taste of the most compelling parts of a graduate school experience as well as an immersive experience in the field of computer science. The student research projects cover a breadth of areas in computing science. The students will gain experience in all aspects of the process of conducting research. The site will target students from 2-year schools and students early in their undergraduate studies. The faculty is committed to engaging students from groups traditionally under-represented in computing. The program features individual and group activities that create a strong common-cohort experience for students for whom the REU experience should be transformative. The program develops research ability, improves presentation and communications skills, and nurtures student interest in research-related careers.
The intellectual merit of the project revolves around the variety of systems projects through which students will be exposed to all aspects of the research process. The research focus areas include text simplification, robotics, domain-specific programming languages and systems, and active transportation planning. Each project connects with the systems theme, building atop existing platforms, melding theory and practice, and implementing designs to mitigate complexity. The projects are designed to be accessible to students early in their undergraduate careers and share principles of low-cost and overhead, external accessibility of deliverables, and narrowness of focus. The students engage in projects that are exciting, current, and externally relevant and that have clear applications. Students actively pursue the entire research process including literature search, digesting prior work, formulating new problems, designing and conducting investigations, and preparing presentations and publications of results. The REU cohorts will regularly share their work with each other and meet daily with faculty mentors. The project activities will permit students to acquire valuable professional development skills, gain a broader and deeper understanding of research, and develop greater confidence in their abilities as future computing professionals and researchers.
