Research (REU)

THIS IS THE WEBSITE FOR TWO REU PROGRAMS:

1. National Security Agency (NSA) REU "Strengthening Minorities Achievements via Research Training in Mathematics" (FUNDED for the summer of 2016, 7 students).  Go ahead and apply for this program right now!

2. National Science Foundation (NSF) REU "Combinatorics and Modeling" (FUNDING PENDING for the Summers of 2016, 2017, and 2018 -- for 6 students in Combinatorics and 4 students in Modeling).  You may want to wait to apply for this program.

Summer 2016 dates:  June 6--August 5 2016 

Application Deadline for both programs: 11:59:59 pm on Friday March 25. 

This is a two-month (=nine-week) summer Research Experience for Undergraduates funded by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The NSA program will be directed by Ariel Cintron-Arias and Debra Knisley, who will supervise the research of seven students in the areas of 

Summer 2016 will be the 25th year of operation of the NSF Program.   Anant Godbole will direct the six students in the Combinatorics/Probability portion of the program. The Modeling portion, with four students, will be directed by Ariel Cintron-Arias. 

ETSU is located at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains in scenic Johnson City, East Tennessee, 100 miles from Knoxville, 200 miles from Charlotte (An American Airlines hub with connections to Johnson City) and 250 miles from Atlanta (A Delta hub with connecting flights to Johnson City). 

Modeling and Computation: Team members will work in pairs on one in-depth problem for the nine weeks.  All problems will involve modeling and simulation of models using MATLAB, Python, or R.  Additionally, research problems will explore topics in: stochastic processes at the interface of model validation against longitudinal data; large-scale complex networks within the context of dynamic processes such as evolutionary strategies and rational biodesign. 


Probability and Combinatorics:  Team members work singly (seldom) or in small groups (typically) on problems widely varying in kind and approachability. Anant suggests a number of problems at the beginning of the session, and generally most projects grow out of these. Each student typically works on two problems of her/his choice.  There's plenty of room for innovation, though.  Generally problems are in (i) Discrete Math; or (ii) Probabilistic Methods applied to Discrete Math

The problems for 2015 will be shared with students as soon as we make them offers, but there will be a strong focus on

  • Parameter Estimation in Stochastic Models (Modeling and Computing); or

  • Complex Networks and Dynamic Models (Modeling and Computing); or  

  • Universal Cycles and Permutation Patterns (Probability and Combinatorics) 

Most often, publishable papers grow out of projects at the ETSU REU. Past participants have published in The Journal of Combinatorial Theory; Statistics and Probability Letters; Combinatorics, Probability and Computing; Annals of Combinatorics; Electronic Journal of Combinatorial Number Theory; Advances in Applied Probability; Journal of Number Theory; Electronic Journal of Combinatorics; Discrete Mathematics; SIAM Journal on Discrete Math; Graphs and Combinatorics; Methodology and Computing in Applied Probability; Pure Mathematics and Applications; Journal of Statistical Planning & Inference and several others. Arxiv preprint (www.arxiv.org) versions of several papers can be seen below; most of these have been published.  Overall, there have been over 75 papers written by REU students.  Participants also regularly attend professional conferences where they present their work: For example, the 2014 group went to the Annual Joint Math Meetings in Baltimore in January 2016, and some will go to the International Permutation Patterns Conference.  I expect that this year's group will go to the Joint Math Meetings in Seattle, January 2016.  Another exciting happening:  Anant's group will go to Carnegie Mellon University for the prestigious Random Structures and Algorithms conference during the last week of the program!  See http://rsa2015.amu.edu.pl/ for details of this conference, which is usually held in Poznan, Poland.

Application materials

Other ETSU-REU site information

List of past participants and the schools they attended

Recent papers written by past participants