REU Site: CAAR: Combinatorics, Algorithms, and AI Applied to Real Problems

REU网站的更新计划将招募10名本科生到马里兰大学帕克分校，在那里他们将与导师一起进行为期10周的团队研究项目。学生们将被提供各种各样的研究项目，并且在创建自己的项目时也会有很强的发言权。一些人将开发机器学习（ML）系统的新技术和分析，该系统使用概率和统计来发现数据中的模式。其他人将使用密码学来构建安全系统。将提供以下主题领域的研究项目：密码学和安全性；公平分配;可信机器学习；神经网络和金融。这些项目广泛地注重理论与实践的结合，参加该计划的学生将有能力看到现实世界的问题，并应用理论技术来解决它。该项目将特别努力从非研究型学校和传统上代表性不足的群体中招收学生。为了吸引这些学生，私人顾问计划多次前往这些学校（亲自或通过视频）进行招聘。这个项目将给许多学生一个做研究的机会，否则他们不会有这样的机会。这个项目将为所有的学生进入研究生院做准备。社会活动包括旅行、远足、关于专业发展的小组讨论，以及与其他REU学生、当前研究生和教师的其他计划互动。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This renewal REU Site program will recruit 10 undergraduate students to come to the University of Maryland at College Park where they will work for 10 weeks on team research projects with mentors. The students will be offered a variety of research projects and will also be given a strong voice in the creation of their own projects. Several will develop new techniques and analyses of machine learning (ML) systems, which use probability and statistics to find patterns in data. Others will use cryptography to build secure systems. Research projects in following topical areas will be offered: Cryptography and Security; Fair Allocation; Trustworthy Machine Learning; and Neural Networks and Finance. These projects broadly focus on combining theory and practice and students attending the program will leave it with the ability to look at a real world problem and apply theoretical techniques to solving it. There will be a special effort to recruit students in the program from non-research-focused schools and from traditionally underrepresented groups. The PIs plan several recruiting trips (in person or on zoom) to such schools to attract such students. This program will give many of the students a chance to do research, which they otherwise would not have. This program will prepare all of the students for graduate school. Social activities include trips, hikes, panel discussions about professional development, and other planned interactions with other REU students, current graduate students, and facultyThis 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.