Student Research Information and Opportunities

One of the best things you can do as undergraduate to help you learn about graduate school is to participate in an undergraduate research project. Should you decide graduate school is for you, your undergraduate research experience will increase your chances of being admitted and of receiving a graduate fellowship to pay for it. You can participate in research either part-time during the school year, or full-time during the summer.

This page provides some resources to help you learn more about what research is and how to do it well, as well as some opportunities for getting involved in research, either during the academic year here at Texas A&M or by doing an internship, either here or elsewhere.

• Research Resources
• Academic Year Research Opportunities at TAMU
• Internship Opportunities (most, but not all, summer)

Assorted Research Resources

Here are some links to resources that you may find useful to help you learn more about research.

• Hints for Success in Undergraduate Research
• Advice on Research and Writing
• Texas A&M Undergraduate Research
• CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Award

Research Internship Programs

Undergraduate internship opportunities

• Research Experience for Undergraduates is a summer program offered by the Department of Computer Science that spans 10 weeks and involves undergraduate students from Texas A&M as well as students from other colleges and universities.
  Program announcement and application details are available at http://cs.tamu.edu/REU.
  Application Deadline: February 15, 2008

• Undergraduate Summer Research Grants (USRG) provide support for summer research with faculty in the Dwight Look College of Engineering at Texas A&M University.
  Program announcement and application details are available at http://eapo.tamu.edu/usrg/.
  Application Deadline: February 29, 2008

• CRA-W Distributed Mentor Program (DMP). The CRA-W DMP matches outstanding female undergraduates with faculty mentors for a summer of research at the mentor's institution.
  Program details and application information are available at http://www.cra.org/craw/dmp/.
  Application Deadline: February 15, 2008

  Others:

• National Science Foundation Funded REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) Programs. There are many summer research programs around the country that are sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
  A list of them is available at http://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/list_result.cfm?unitid=5049.
  Application Deadline: vary by program - most have application deadlines in February and March for the summer.

  Academic Year Research Opportunities at TAMU

  University Undergraduate Research Fellows Program

  One excellent program at Texas A&M is the University Undergraduate Research Fellows Program. From their webpage: "If you're looking for more independent research, the University Undergraduate Research Fellows Program is the most prestigious independent study opportunity available to undergraduates at Texas A&M. As a fellow, you'll participate in two semesters of research during your senior year that culminate in a senior honors thesis and a symposium presentation. A close master-apprentice relationship between student researchers and faculty advisors helps you discover your potential for serious research and helps prepare you for graduate studies."

  Part-Time Research Opportunities (CPSC 485 Credits and/or $$)

  There are many exciting research projects being carried out by faculty in the Computer Science Department. One way for undergraduates to get involved in these projects is by taking CPSC 485 credits (which can often be used to satisfy technical electives on your degree plan and are a required part of the Engineering Scholars Program). This is arranged individually between you and the faculty member. Individual initiative is important in approaching faculty to ask about research opportunities. The mentors can help you identify which faculty members are working in areas that are of interest to you.

  Here are a list of some professors in the Department of Computer Science that have indicated they are interested in discussing research possibilities with undergraduates. Please note this list is not exhaustive - if you are interested in working with a professor that is not listed below, go ahead and contact them - nothing ventured, nothing gained!

  • Nancy Amato : Motion planning, robotics, computational geometry, and virtual reality. Parallel and distributed computing.
  • Jianer Chen: Algorithms, computer graphics, and network optimization.
  • Ricardo Gutierrez-Osuna: Pattern Recognition and Intelligent Systems, Data Processing and Gas Sensor Instrumentation for Machine Olfaction, Speech-Driven Facial Animation, Neuromorphic Computation.
  • Tom Ioerger: AI, intelligent agents, machine learning, and bioinformatics.
  • Lawrence Rauchwerger: Parallelizing compilers, adaptive run-time optimizations, architectures for high-performance computing, parallel C++ libraries.
  • Frank Shipman: Computer-human interaction, intelligent user interfaces, hypermedia, computer-supported cooperative work, computers and education.
  • Jennifer Welch: Distributed algorithms, particularly for mobile ad hoc networks and for randomized distributed data structures.

   

  Please send comments, complaints, additions, etc. regarding this webpage and/or the Mentoring Pool to amato@cs.tamu.edu.