Continuing a forty-six year old tradition, the Department of Mathematics at Indiana University will offer summer intensive research experiences for talented undergraduates. Working one-on-one or in small groups with faculty, eight students will spend eight weeks on our campus working on research problems selected by faculty members. Typically, these problems are open, accessible, and mathematically significant. Topics in pure mathematics include the dynamics of billiards, logic, complex dynamics, combinatorial topology, and tilings of surfaces. Topics in applied mathematics emphasize the growing relationship between mathematics and biology and include population genetics and molecular evolution, polymer organization and cell function, evolution of phenotypes, genome evolution, and phylogenetics. Housed together in a dormitory and sharing common office space, students benefit from being immersed in mathematics. Frequent presentations by local faculty give the cohort a broader and deeper understanding of mathematics. Students disseminate their findings by giving brief presentations at a statewide undergraduate mathematics research conference, giving an hour-long formal lecture to peers, faculty, and graduate students, and writing a formal self-contained research report detailing their findings.
The fast pace of technological innovation is creating not only new types of jobs, but also new types of problems. Many of these problems require quantitative analysis. In biology, imaging, telecommunications, medicine, finance, and dozens of other fields, our ability to collect large amounts of data is leading to enormous new analytical challenges. How does one train an individual to work on these large, unsolved, complex problems? By exposing them, early in their career, to the thrill and challenge of mathematical research. Our summer research experience will give a small group of talented students the opportunity to develop abstract problem-solving skills, intellectual stamina, creativity, perseverance, communication skills, and work ethic. Our students emerge better prepared to meet the future challenges they will face and to maintain the important intellectual infrastructure of our nation.
