Collaborative Research: AIM & ICERM Research Experiences for Undergraduate Faculty (REUF)

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Enabling more Americans to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is important to improving American innovation capabilities. Participating in research as undergraduates improves retention in STEM majors and encourages students to pursue graduate degrees. Faculty at colleges and universities that focus on undergraduate education are critical to this mission, yet in many cases such faculty receive little support to do research with the students they teach or to continue their own research. To address this national need, with the support of this NSF award, the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM) and the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics (ICERM) will conduct a series of four annual Research Experiences for Undergraduate Faculty (REUF) workshops during the summers of 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. Each REUF workshop and ongoing activities will provide a new group of faculty participants at undergraduate institutions that have limited research support with a research experience investigating open questions in the mathematical sciences and equip them to engage in research with undergraduate students at their home institutions. At each REUF workshop five senior mathematicians (leaders) who have experience doing research with undergraduate students will present problems in a variety of areas. Then the 25 undergraduate faculty participants and the leaders will divide into groups and work on the problems together. The workshop will conclude with group presentations of each project. Most of the time will be spent doing research, but there will also be whole group discussions about topics such as best practices in undergraduate research led by the (co)-principal investigators, who also meet daily with the leaders. There are opportunities to continue work on the projects started in the workshop, and some participants will become involved in long-term research collaborations with other faculty at the workshop. The recruitment efforts for REUF will target faculty at undergraduate colleges and universities that serve a large proportion of students who are underrepresented minorities, person with disabilities, or first generation college students, as well as faculty who are themselves underrepresented or have disabilities. The REUF project will lead to more and better undergraduate research experiences for the students of the faculty participants, and greater engagement in mathematical research by the faculty participants, thus expanding and diversifying the mathematical workforce.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.