REU Site: Robotics and Autonomous Systems

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The goal of this Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) is for undergraduate students to participate in research projects that cross-cut multiple areas of robotics and autonomous systems, including socially assistive robotics, robot learning, networked robotics, and robotics data processing. The participating faculty mentors span the spectrum of cutting-edge research topics in robotics and are well established in their fields. Students will gain research experience in solving some of the most challenging modern robotics and autonomy problems and get exposure to robotics research beyond the scope of the REU site, through seminars by other USC faculty and external site visits, to aid in planning their next career steps. Ultimately, the goal is to instill a sense of belonging to the research community into a cohort of undergraduate students from traditionally underrepresented groups.The proposed site will train nine undergraduates for 10 weeks each year, with the specific goal of attracting participants from three key populations: 1) academically talented students from traditionally underserved colleges and universities; 2) women; and, 3) underrepresented minorities. The students in the REU program will pursue authentic research projects in collaboration with PhD students and REU Site faculty mentors. The projects will be carefully designed to ensure that students can achieve relatively independent status as the program progresses and as they learn about the research process and their area of robotics. The REU site will employ a comprehensive utilization-focused evaluation plan that includes ongoing assessment of programmatic processes and outcomes. The REU site evaluation plan will provide formative feedback to the PIs in a timely fashion so that data-informed decisions can be made toward program improvement through the deployment of pre- and mid-program evaluation surveys of student participants.This site is supported by the Department of Defense in partnership with the NSF REU program.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.