REU Site: INCLUSION - Incubating a New Community of Leaders Using Software, Inclusion, Innovation, Interdisciplinary and OpeN-Science

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

Research laboratories are no longer rooms full of test tubes or microscopes; computers have taken center stage and research across all fields is becoming increasingly digital. This research, including modeling, simulation, data collection, and data analysis is dependent on software, some of which is written or adopted from existing code. However, this software is mostly developed and used by researchers who are not trained in software development, leading to software that is functional but not well-structured, well-documented, robust, or reusable. To promote the progress of science, the Incubating a New Community of Leaders Using Software, Inclusion, Innovation, Interdisciplinary and Open Science (INCLUSION) project immerses a highly motivated and diverse cohort of students in a guided research process that enables them to experience the thrill of discovery and to adopt the role of scientists as one which is authentically theirs. It aims to inspire students to pursue research careers using open source software and equips them with the skills and knowledge to prepare them for graduate school and employment opportunities, where they will help advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare, and secure the national defense. INCLUSION trains pairs of students in software skills leveraging and building upon state-of-art lessons. The students work with pairs of mentors on interdisciplinary socially-impactful research projects that develop and use open source software across a wide variety of STEM fields. Their work can lead to research advances and the project contributes open source tools to the larger scientific community, leading to additional advances. By doing so, INCLUSION provides interdisciplinary training for undergraduate researchers, facilitates students' professional growth, and prepares them for the STEM workplace, increasing diversity in the STEM pipeline through engagement in research. INCLUSION is a 10-week summer program comprising general software-in-research training and focused research projects. Its goals are to: 1) Stimulate enrollment in graduate studies of a diverse student body through involvement of pairs of students in scientific investigation under the mentorship of at least two University of Illinois faculty members from different disciplines; 2) Develop students' ability to apply open source software (OSS) technologies to real-world problems; 3) Promote collaborative ties between the student's institution and University of Illinois faculty, staff and students and provide a basis for future collaborative studies; 4) Develop well documented and tested software for the science and engineering research community; and 5) Build intercultural competences that make minority and underrepresented students competitive in the global marketplace. INCLUSION students are undergraduates from underrepresented groups from all types of institutions, focused on Minority Serving Institutions. Mentors develop skills for creating both formal and informal mentoring relationships. The students participate in research and professional development activities that are designed to achieve the goal of retaining and graduating undergraduate students in science and engineering who might not have similar opportunities for research experiences at their own institutions. Challenging research problems prompt students' guided development of research skills: investigation, presentation, and publication: one-on-one introductions by mentors transition to student-led talks and culminate with publications and conference experiences during or after the summer.