REU Sites: Renewal for the Department of Computer Science at Texas A&M University

众所周知，本科生接触研究往往会导致对攻读研究生学位的积极决定。TAMU目前在CS的REU现场资助计划非常有效，增加了我们研究生课程中的女性和少数族裔人数。例如，从2004年和2005年的REU站点暑期项目来看，16名REU学生中有4人(或25%)就读于TAMU的研究生课程，其中2人是女性或少数民族。建议更新的REU网站的目标是：(1)让不同的本科生接触到令人兴奋的计算机科学研究，目标是让学生攻读研究生学位；(2)让不同的本科生接触到教师的职业生涯。计算机科学领域在研究生课程中的少数民族和女性人数方面落后。这个项目直接使这些学生受益，因为该项目为妇女和少数族裔提供了参与研究项目、接触各种榜样并形成项目之外的社区的机会。每名REU学生将有一名教师导师和一名研究生导师。研究项目将集中在反映该部门当前专业知识的七个核心领域：计算基础；以人为中心的系统；信息；智能系统和机器人；软件；软件工程和系统。这些领域对新兴的多学科领域至关重要，如生物信息学、计算科学和人文信息学。学生将有机会深入研究核心领域，或将核心领域应用到新兴的多学科领域。

It is well known that exposure of undergraduates to research often leads to a positive decision about pursuing graduate degrees. Program such as the current REU Site grant in CS at TAMU have been very effective with increasing our numbers of women and minorities in our graduate program. For example, from the 2004 and 2005 REU site summer programs, 4 of the 16 REU students (or 25%) are enrolled in graduate programs at TAMU, of which 2 are women or minority. The objectives of the proposed renewal REU site are: (1) exposure of diverse undergraduates to exciting research in Computer Science with the goal of having the students pursue a graduate degree and (2) exposure of diverse undergraduates to a career as a faculty member. The computer science field lags behind in numbers of ethnic minorities and women in the graduate program. This project directly benefits these students by having a program that provides an opportunity for women and minorities, in particular, to participate in the research projects, be exposed to various role models, and form communities that can exist beyond the program. Each REU student will have a faculty advisor and a graduate student mentor. The research projects will focus on seven core areas that reflect the current expertise in the department: Foundations of Computing; Human-Centered Systems; Information; Intelligent Systems and Robotics; Software; Software Engineering and Systems. These areas are critical to emerging multi-disciplinary areas, such as bioinformatics, computational science, and humanities informatics. Students will have an opportunity to work in depth in the core area or with the application of the core area to an emerging, multi-disciplinary area.