REU Site: Research Experience for Undergraduates in Algebra and Discrete Mathematics at Auburn University

八名本科生将在2010年至2012年的每个夏天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，并让他们对研究生院和研究职业感到兴奋。我们计划的关键部分是我们列出了许多研究问题，参与者可以与任何人一起解决其中的任何一个问题。因此，活动的模式将与我们以前的REU计划一样：在头两到三周集中介绍问题和问题领域，在第三周每个参与者必须做一次“破冰”报告，在剩下的五周里，每个参与者都要做一次“研究机构”，最后一周结束时每个参与者都要做一次最后的报告。在研究机构阶段，每天至少有一次研究报告，由我们数学与统计系的教职员工和研究生，访问杰出人士，以及参与者本人。但这一阶段的主要特点将是参与者进行的研究，与教师、研究生和他们自己进行各种组合。可公布的结果将由参与者本人在项目主管的建议下撰写，如果是与教职员工合作，则由教职员工与参与者(S)协商后撰写。计划结束后，将与参与者保持沟通，以便进行进一步的研究，在全国会议上展示结果，为后续计划或研究生学习招募人才，并评估计划对他们生活的影响。

Eight undergraduates will assemble for eight weeks at Auburn University in each of the summers 2010-2012 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 anybody. 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 conferences, recruiting for subsequent programs or graduate study, and for assessing the impact of the program on their lives.