REU Site: Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research in Discrete Mathematical and Computational Biology

REU 网站：离散数学和计算生物学跨学科本科生研究

• 批准号: 1822540
• 负责人: Katherine St. John
• 金额: $ 9.75万
• 依托单位: CUNY Hunter College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-09-01 至 2019-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1822540&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: REU; Site; Interdisciplinary; Undergraduate; Research

The Lehman College REU program on interdisciplinary undergraduate research in discrete mathematical and computational biology is an academic year research experience for undergraduate students early in their college experiences. The program will be run at Lehman College of the City University of New York, a designated Minority Serving and Hispanic Serving Institution located in the Bronx, New York. Students will be drawn from the greater New York metropolitan area, which has a population of 18.9 million and has over a million college students. At least half of the student participants will be recruited from academic institutions where research opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are limited, including two-year colleges. Large numbers of students enter college planning to study science but exit with degrees in other fields. Many factors have been cited for the attrition, including the larger workloads for science majors and the pull of grade inflation of the non-sciences. Involvement in scientific research early in the undergraduate experience has been suggested as a way to increase retention, especially for groups historically underrepresented in the sciences. We aim to reach students early in their college career -- at a critical transition point where many choose non-scientific majors -- and provide a supportive environment to make progress on challenging, open research problems. While traditionally REU programs have focused on upper division students the summer before their final year of college, our program will recruit ten students at earlier stages in their college career and run during the academic year. The goals of this program are to involve students early in a dynamic research program, show how research can be integrated into their lives, and encourage the students to pursue future research opportunities. The program is designed to complement the academic schedules of the local community and four-year colleges with all-day on-site meetings on Fridays during the fall semester and an intensive program during the January intersession. The intellectual focus of this undergraduate research program is on a simple, but extremely powerful, model: a "tree" or acyclic graph. Mathematical tree structures are ubiquitous in biology and computer science, used in such diverse fields as evolutionary biology to computer science. The simplicity of the structure yields many open problems at the intersection of biology, computing, and mathematics that are approachable by strong students. The program is structured to build students' competence and independence in research and problem solving activities. The cohort of students will consist mostly of second year students: many will have little experience of working on open research projects, collaborating with others, and communicating scientific ideas. As such, the program assumes no past experience (other than success in early STEM courses that emphasize problem solving skills) and builds a framework that moves students towards independence. The program structure offers a mix of instruction in technical skills (such as the use of LaTeX, technical writing, and poster design) and academic topics (that will provide additional tools for tackling the open research challenges) as well as a framework to encourage the development of interpersonal skills (such as the responsible conduct of research, collegial interactions, and successful collaborative skills).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.

Lehman College REU离散数学和计算生物学跨学科本科研究计划是本科生在大学早期的一个学年研究经验。该计划将在纽约城市大学雷曼学院运行，该学院是位于纽约布朗克斯的指定少数民族服务和西班牙裔服务机构。 学生将来自大纽约大都市区，该地区拥有1890万人口，拥有100多万大学生。 至少一半的学生参与者将从科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）研究机会有限的学术机构招募，包括两年制大学。 大量的学生进入大学计划学习科学，但在其他领域的学位退出。 许多因素被认为是造成这种减员的原因，包括理科专业的工作量更大，以及非理科专业的成绩膨胀。 参与科学研究的早期本科经验已被建议作为一种方式，以增加保留，特别是对群体的历史上代表性不足的科学。 我们的目标是在学生的大学生涯早期-在一个关键的过渡点，许多人选择非科学专业-并提供一个支持性的环境，使具有挑战性的，开放的研究问题取得进展。 虽然传统上REU计划的重点是在大学最后一年的夏天之前的高年级学生，但我们的计划将在他们的大学生涯的早期阶段招募10名学生，并在学年期间运行。 该计划的目标是让学生尽早参与动态研究计划，展示研究如何融入他们的生活，并鼓励学生追求未来的研究机会。 该计划旨在补充当地社区和四年制大学的学术日程，在秋季学期的星期五全天现场会议，并在一月闭会期间进行强化计划。 这个本科研究项目的智力重点是一个简单但非常强大的模型：“树”或非循环图。 数学树结构在生物学和计算机科学中无处不在，用于进化生物学和计算机科学等不同领域。 结构的简单性在生物学、计算和数学的交叉点上产生了许多开放性问题，这些问题对于优秀的学生来说是可以解决的。 该计划旨在培养学生在研究和解决问题活动中的能力和独立性。 这批学生将主要由二年级学生组成：许多人几乎没有从事开放式研究项目、与他人合作和交流科学思想的经验。 因此，该计划假设没有过去的经验（除了在强调解决问题能力的早期STEM课程中取得成功），并建立了一个使学生走向独立的框架。 该计划的结构提供了一个混合的指令在技术技能（如LaTeX的使用，技术写作和海报设计）和学术主题（这将为应对开放式研究挑战提供额外的工具）以及鼓励发展人际交往技能的框架（如负责任的研究行为，学院的互动，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。