REU Site: Complexity in Algebra, Geometry and Applications

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The ongoing revolution in communication technology and cloud computing is driving demand for information security tools and specialists. Likewise the revolution in molecular and cell biology is driving a rapidly emerging demand to mathematize biology and for professionals competent in both mathematics and biology. The nature of computing and complexity are central themes for both. Important mathematical problems relevant to the concerns of information security or biology are within the intellectual grasp of talented undergraduate students. The REU Site: Complexity in Algebra, Geometry and Applications will introduce undergraduate students to research in mathematics motivated by applications to information security or genome biology. An objective of this program is to produce a cohort of young researchers whose work and vision will transcend the artificial boundary between mathematics and real world applications of mathematics.Over the course of eight weeks 8 undergraduate students alongside their faculty mentors will be engaged in mathematics-based interdisciplinary research. In addition to targeted research projects the program will provide a broad array of associated program elements designed to draw students into and prepare them for STEM careers. These include: research workshops where students will build their backgrounds for their projects, computing workshops where students will develop programming skills needed for progress on their research projects, meetings as a group where they will report their current research and a research symposium at the end of the program where all students will present their research results. Using our cloud resources the program will implement collaborative spaces that blend face-to-face and online modes of activity for our workshops, seminars and student research teams. This technological capability is a key component of our follow-through plan to sustain the subsequent research experience of alumni of our REU program.