REU SITE: Research in Consumer Networking Technologies

University Of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia MO

Investigators

Abstract

This funding renews a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Site at the University of Missouri - Columbia. Undergraduate students will engage in summer research involving a variety of interesting and challenging technical issues in consumer networking. Experienced faculty mentors will lead projects in five major research areas including software defined networking, social media computing, social health networking for eldercare, body-area sensing and emotion recognition, and network performance optimization. The students will participate in the faculty mentors' on-going funded research, investigate technically challenging issues, and develop viable solutions and insights. They will have opportunities to present their research results at various venues at the university, national, and international levels. The site will focus on recruiting students from non-PhD granting institutions with particular emphasis on institutions in and around the state of Missouri. The intellectual merit of the project rests with the leadership an experienced research group with excellent expertise and experience in the research area. The research activities will lead to a better understanding of the multitude of efficiency, performance, reliability, scalability, and security issues and tradeoffs in emerging consumer networking technologies. The approach of integrating future Internet technologies such as Internet-of-Things and software-defined networking in the REU Site will foster the rapid deployment of advanced consumer networking services and applications that are of significance to the economy and quality of life in areas such as social computing and health care. The broader impacts include providing a unique opportunity for undergraduate students with limited research opportunities to experience research in the interdisciplinary areas of consumer networking. With an already established recruitment network, the project team plans to reach the targeted students and encourage applications from women engineers and under-represented minorities as well as students from predominantly undergraduate institutions. The program should be of great interest to undergraduate students due to its close interaction between daily life and exciting consumer networking technologies. The research experiences offer students insight into the requirements of advanced degrees by closely working with faculty mentors and graduate students, and may lead to students ultimately pursuing advanced degrees and fulfilling careers in science and engineering. The professional evaluation by an external assessment specialist should contribute to educational research on effective structures for involving undergraduates in research.