REU Site: Research Experience for Undergraduates in Algebra and Discrete Mathematics at Auburn University

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Eight undergraduates will assemble for eight weeks at Auburn University in each of the summers 2010-2012 to conduct research in areas of algebra and discrete mathematics. Our aim is to provide participants with an authentic research experience and get them excited about graduate school and research careers. The essential part of our program is that we lay out a lot of research problems, and participants can work on any one of them with anybody. The pattern of activities will therefore be as in our previous REU programs: intensive introduction to problems and problem areas in the first two to three weeks, capped by an obligatory "ice-breaker" presentation by each participant in the third week, followed by a "research institute" in the remaining five weeks, capped by a final presentation by each participant at the end of the final week. During the research institute phase, there will be at least one research presentation every day, by faculty and graduate students of our Department of Mathematics and Statistics, visiting luminaries, and the participants themselves. But the main feature of that phase will be research carried on by the participants, in various combinations with faculty, graduate students, and themselves. Publishable results will be written up either by the participants themselves, with advice from the project directors, or, in the case of joint work with faculty, by a faculty member in consultation with the participant(s). Communication will be maintained with participants after the program ends for the purpose of conducting further research, presenting results at national conferences, recruiting for subsequent programs or graduate study, and for assessing the impact of the program on their lives.