REU Site: Socially Relevant Computing Research: Visualization, Virtual Environments, Gaming, and Networking

University Of North Carolina At Charlotte, Charlotte NC

Investigators

Abstract

The project objectives are to broaden participation in computing doctoral programs by providing a summer research experience that will immerse undergraduates into the activities and culture of a research lab. Participating labs include the Charlotte Visualization Center, the Future Computing Lab, the Games+Learning Lab and the Networking Research Lab. Students will focus on computing research, within these labs, that empower people to solve problems of personal interest or that are important to society at large (socially relevant computing). The activities include a summer research experience introducing students to computing research methodologies and a broad array of computing research disciplines. Students will receive support from peer and faculty mentors. Students will take a GRE prep course and will be shown how to apply to and succeed in graduate school. The targeted student participants are women and under-represented minority students who are rising juniors, predominantly from non-doctoral institutions. The intended impact is that a high number of REU students will apply to computing doctoral programs. INTELLECTUAL MERIT The intellectual merit will primarily be the contributions to computing research that will be produced by the undergraduate students participating in the REU Site. The topics addressed are relatively new in CS. Additionally, the program evaluation will inform efforts to recruit undergraduate students to doctoral programs by demonstrating the success and challenges of this REU Site structure for motivating students to apply to doctoral programs in computing. BROADER IMPACT The broader impact of the project will be evidenced by the increased numbers of students from under-represented populations in computing who successfully participate in research and who apply to and are accepted into graduate programs in computing.