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.

2013-2015年的每个夏天，八名本科生将在奥本大学聚集八周，进行代数和离散数学领域的研究。我们的目标是为参与者提供真实的研究体验，让他们对研究生院和研究生涯感到兴奋。我们计划的重要组成部分是，我们提出了很多研究问题，参与者可以与教师，研究生，其他参与者或自己一起解决其中任何一个问题。他们可以研究不止一件事;他们可以研究从别处引进的问题，也可以研究他们自己设计的问题。 我们以这种方式进行程序，因为我们相信这是数学研究至少2500年来一直在做的基本方式。 因此，活动的模式将与我们以前的REU计划一样：在前两到三周集中介绍问题和问题领域，在第三周由每个参与者进行强制性的“破冰”演讲，然后在剩下的五周进行“研究机构”，最后在最后一周结束时由每个参与者进行最终演讲。 在研究所阶段，将有至少一个研究报告，每天由我们的数学和统计系的教师和研究生，访问名人，和参与者自己，但该阶段的主要特点将是研究进行的参与者在各种组合与教师，研究生，和自己。可发表的结果将由参与者自己撰写，并得到项目主任的建议，或者，在与教师联合工作的情况下，由一名教师与参与者协商。在项目结束后，为了进行进一步的研究，在全国和国际会议上展示成果，招募后续项目或研究生学习，以及评估项目对他们生活的影响，我们将与参与者保持沟通。通过测量参与者的数学发现，我们已经相当成功。到我们2011年和2012年项目的所有结果发表时，将有超过30篇论文发表在评审期刊上，还有许多其他论文仍在准备中。然而，我们所渴望的成功并不那么容易量化：我们希望参与者从项目中获得启发，了解数学研究可能是什么样的，这样他们就可以更好地决定他们想用自己的生命做什么。 到目前为止，大约一半的校友已经进入数学研究生学习，另一个重要的部分已经进入计算机科学，统计学或数学教育的研究生院。