This Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site project supports ten students per year in programs carried out during the summers for three years. The students work on projects in the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval (CIIR). The projects include work in image matching algorithms, machine methods for learning profile characteristics, retrieval of handwritten documents using image matching algorithms, and building Java interfaces for visualization. The project has strong collaborative plans for the project with Mt. Holyoke College, an outstanding and nearby women's institution.
Students for the REU program are recruited nationwide, but the program focuses on students from the University of Massachusetts and the four nearby undergraduate colleges. Faculty and students join in a group seminar that is used to describe, explore, and discuss research methodology, helping undergraduates learn what makes "good science". The group-based approach is an important aspect of the REU at the CIIR.
