REU Site: Algorithm Design --- Theory and Engineering

This REU site will enable a diverse group of undergraduates to participate in algorithms and theory research. The mentors are NC State University faculty members with relevant backgrounds, publication records, and a solid undergraduate mentoring history. Besides this, the participants will receive training (via workshops) on reading and analyzing a research paper, conducting a literature review, giving an oral presentation, etc. Finally, the participants will present their findings at an undergraduate research symposium at NC State University. These experiences will allow them to build critical computer science research capacity and the confidence to pursue advanced research, which might encourage them to do graduate studies in related areas. The site will ensure the participation of women and students from underrepresented minority groups and colleges/universities with limited research opportunities. The participants will work closely with mentors on ongoing research within various subfields such as computational geometry, randomized algorithms, data structures, quantum computing, bioinformatics, operational research, and machine learning theory. The nature of research varies from developing theoretical algorithms to experimental analysis of practical heuristics and implementation and engineering of software modules. Mentors will help the participants convert sufficiently strong results into a paper and the submission process to an appropriate peer-reviewed conference or workshop. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.