REU Site: Interdisciplinary Scientific Computation at Ohio Wesleyan University

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This award supports a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) site to be integrated with a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) component at Ohio Wesleyan University. Each student (teacher) participant will work on a ten-week (six-week) research project under the guidance of an experienced Ohio Wesleyan University faculty member in one of the following disciplines: astronomy, computer science, mathematics/statistics, and physics. All projects focus on one or more aspects of scientific computation: numerical, symbolic, and data visualization. An important goal of the research projects is to make participants aware of the ability of computational techniques to cross disciplinary boundaries, i.e. to be effective at solving problems of interest in many different fields of scientific inquiry. Weekly meetings, in which individual research groups will give progress reports and where all participants will be able to discuss the projects, foster a sense of community among the participants and point out the strengths of computational techniques to tackle problems in varying disciplines. A rack-mounted Beowulf cluster, purchased recently by the university, will be available for participants to use on their projects, and a workshop devoted to the basic ideas behind the construction, operation, and use of the cluster will be offered. A research symposium will be held at the end of the research period for participants to present their results. Other Ohio liberal arts colleges will be invited to participate in the symposium. Each presentation will be recorded and uploaded to the REU website for dissemination to the wider world. In addition, participating students and teachers are encouraged to present their results at regional and national conferences of professional scientific societies. Underrepresented groups, including minorities and students from small colleges and universities with little research opportunities are strongly encouraged to apply, as are high school teachers who are in a position to encourage students from underrepresented groups to study science. This award is co-funded by the Divisions of Physics and Mathematics Sciences and by the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate.