REU Site: SURF-IT: Exploring Integrative System Design at UCSC

University Of California-Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz CA

Investigators

Abstract

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship in Information Technology (SURF-IT) at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) provides an intensive and personalized summer research program for students with an emphasis on undergraduates from underrepresented groups and disadvantaged backgrounds. The primary part of SURF-IT is a 9-week summer program that includes research directly supervised by a UCSC faculty member. Students also have weekly meetings on graduate school preparation, ethics, and research presentation, as well as field trips to local neighboring Silicon Valley research laboratories, and a number of social activities. The summer program concludes with a research poster presentation by the SURF-IT students. The goal is to promote diversity in computer science and engineering by assisting motivated students in obtaining graduate degrees, who then become positive role models for future generations of college students throughout the nation. To better achieve this goal, the site maintains continuing contact with SURF-IT alumni to assist them in applying to and succeeding in graduate school, as well as in their eventual careers. Intellectual merit: The students join a variety of funded research projects in integrative system design within UCSC's department of computer engineering. The special intellectual merit of each project varies, however all students will learn to apply their traditional academic training to open-ended research problems at the forefront of information technology. Broader Impacts: The impact is that greater numbers of individuals from groups underrepresented in information technology, such as women and racial/ethnic minorities. These individuals are moving toward leadership positions in academia and industry, thus providing positive role models for a next generation. The combination of this program and other REU sites ensures broadened participation in computer science and computer engineering, as well as an increased domestic pool of highly trained information technologists.