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

REU 网站：奥本大学代数和离散数学本科生的研究经验

• 批准号: 1262930
• 负责人: Overtoun Jenda
• 金额: $ 20.28万
• 依托单位: Auburn University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-03-01 至 2018-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1262930&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: REU; Site; Research; Experience; Undergraduates

Eight undergraduates will assemble for eight weeks at Auburn University in each of the summers 2013-2015 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 faculty, graduate students, other participants, or by themselves. They can work on more than one thing; they can work on questions imported from elsewhere, or on questions of their own devising. We conduct the program this way because we believe that this is essentially how mathematical research has always been done for at least 2500 years. So 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 and international conferences, recruiting for subsequent programs or graduate study, and for assessing the impact of the program on their lives.By the measure of mathematical discoveries made by the participants, we have been quite successful. By the time all the results from our 2011 and 2012 programs have been published, there will be well over 30 papers in refereed journals and numerous others still in preparation arising from our nine programs. However, the success we aspire to is not so easily quantifiable: we want the participants to emerge from the program enlightened as to what mathematical research might be like, that they may better decide what they want to do with their lives. So far, around half of the alumni have gone on to graduate study in mathematics, and another significant fraction has gone to graduate school in computer science, statistics, or mathematics education.

在2013 - 2015年的每个夏季，八名大学生将在奥本大学组装八周，以在代数和离散数学领域进行研究。我们的目标是为参与者提供真实的研究经验，并使他们对研究生院和研究职业感到兴奋。我们计划的重要部分是我们解决了很多研究问题，参与者可以与教职员工，研究生，其他参与者或他们自己一起工作。他们可以做不止一件事。他们可以研究从其他地方进口的问题，也可以解决自己设计的问题。 我们以这种方式执行该计划，因为我们认为这本质上是数学研究至少2500年的方式。 因此，活动的模式将与我们以前的REU计划一样：在前两到三周内对问题和问题领域进行密集介绍，每个参与者在第三周的强制性“破冰者”演讲中限制了剩下的五个星期，然后在最后一周的最终演讲中限制了剩下的五个星期。 在研究机构阶段，我们的数学和统计学系，访问指导和参与者本身的教职员工和研究生每天至少将进行至少一项研究演讲，但是该阶段的主要特征将由参与者与教职员工，研究生和本身的各种组合进行研究。在项目董事的建议下，或者在与教职员工的联合工作的情况下，与参与者协商时，参与者本人将在参与者本身的建议下写出可公开的结果。该计划结束后，将与参与者进行沟通，以进行进一步的研究，在国家和国际会议上提出结果，招募随后的课程或研究生学习，并评估该计划对他们的生活的影响。通过参与者对数学发现的衡量标准，我们取得了成功。到我们2011年和2012年计划的所有结果都已经发布时，在我们的九个计划中仍将有30多篇论文以及许多其他计划的准备。但是，我们渴望的成功并不容易量化：我们希望参与者从该计划中脱颖而出，以启发数学研究的样子，以至于他们可以更好地决定自己想对自己的生活做什么。 到目前为止，大约一半的校友继续从事数学研究生学习，而在计算机科学，统计或数学教育领域的研究生院也是一部分。