This grant is for an Research Experiences for Undergraduates site at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The program will run for 8 weeks during the summer and the students will actively engage in mathematical research. The students will be guided by four faculty members whose research interests cover graph theory, matroid theory, and game theory. These are all areas of discrete mathematics and the projects all have an applied flavor. Each student will be involved in reading mathematical literature, identifying interesting problems, synthesizing existing knowledge in creative ways to solve problems, communicating work completed in both oral and written forms, and collaborating with other students on different aspects of similar problems. There will be extensive formal and informal faculty interaction with students. Several mechanisms are planned to facilitate each student's continued research into the following academic year. An aim of this program is that the participants will be better prepared and motivated to choose a career in research mathematics.
