Proposed Activities:
The proposed REUs will begin on the third Monday of June and end on the third Friday of August, for a total of 9 weeks, of each of the 2022-2024 years. At the REU orientation, students will be given the opportunity to introduce themselves and meet up with the faculty to discuss the program activities. This will help them in engaging with research, in networking and to get familiarized with the school environment. We have included several activities into our schedule which help our REU’s in their research (Table 1). We have also incorporated a significant number of outside activities to make their learning process more enthusiastic.
Once students have been selected (March), they will be divided into two research project groups. Students will receive video tutorials and introductory lectures covering such topics as deterministic and stochastic partial differential equations, mathematical modeling and coding in MATLAB and Python, depending on which research group they are in. By teaching the popular programming language Python and Python-CUDA, we will guide our REU students to be on the frontiers of research in the mathematical and data sciences. Once the REU begins, during Weeks 1 and 2 students will receive instruction as needed to reinforce concepts. In the mornings students will be introduced to classical introductory research papers connected to their specific research problem, and during afternoons they will work on the research problem.
By the end of Week 2, it is expected that students will have received enough reinforcement and support to move forward with their research problem independently. However, the morning meetings with faculty advisors will continue throughout the program on a daily basis to answer any questions students have and provide support. Each week, the PI (Suazo) will facilitate a seminar where each group will report their progress in front of fellow REU students and faculty presenting the progress in understanding and solving the research problem. Students will be given feedback on their presentation skills and mathematical arguments. These presentations will help them to be better prepared with the problem that they are addressing, and at the same time it will help them to develop their teamwork skills. Throughout the program, students will also attend professional talks about mathematical writing composition, research ethics, Latex and Beamer tutorials, academic writing, how to make effective posters, and how to improve their oral presentation skills. Computer lab access will be allowed as needed; technical writing support will be provided as needed. Additionally, students will have the opportunity to attend weekly faculty colloquium and daily graduate student tutoring. During week 9, students will be devoted to finalizing the research and the written product in preparation for publication and for formal program evaluation. This proposed schedule of activities will help our REU students to get familiar with different stages of research as they progress.
One of overarching goals in the program is to help our REU students to identify their research interests, guide them on how to explore the literature, and to come up with innovative research ideas. All these activities are arranged in a way to increase our REU students’ mindset to keep learning a priority and to make it a life-long pursuit. We are confident that these activities will help them in progressing in their academic career beyond this research experience. Finally, excursions to local attractions will take place on Saturdays, at no cost to students.