REU Site: Cultivating Next Generation Software Engineering Researchers

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This project is for a new Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). It will provide 10 undergraduate students with the opportunity to conduct research for 10 weeks with faculty members in an increasingly growing field of software engineering. A nationwide recruitment process will be used to select cohorts of undergraduate students. The key goal is to target underrepresented groups (women, minorities, and persons with disabilities), first generation college students, and students from undergraduate institutions with limited research opportunities. In addition to conducting research, the students will participate in other professional development activities such as industry field trips, professional seminars, invited speaker series, career guidance, and graduate school preparation. Thus, the project will inspire the students to pursue advanced degree programs and research career in computer science. Finally, software systems have become the critical infrastructure of the society and are increasingly important to national interests including health, energy, cybersecurity, and so on. The project will prepare a large pool of individuals trained in the field of software engineering to address the increasing national needs.The 10 talented undergraduate students will work in small teams on carefully planned research experiences. The project focuses on three main themes, Developers' Productivity, Communication and Collaboration, and Design and Creativity, and spans the entire software development life cycle. The planned research projects will focus on (1) the development of novel software engineering tools and techniques for assisting developers in daily activities, enhancing productivity; (2) human and social aspects of software development, particularly, the interaction among software development team members and how those interactions improve teamwork; and (3) innovation in every aspect of software engineering, including envisioning products, eliciting requirements, analyzing requirements, and designing software systems that satisfy specified requirements and quality attributes. The project will encourage the students to disseminate their research findings through presenting and publishing in peer-reviewed venues.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.