We have an ongoing National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) project with the objective of utilizing the acquired campus-wide shared hybrid CPU/GPU high performance computing cluster (HPCC) to enhance compute-intensive and data-intensive studies and to facilitates discipline-specific and multidisciplinary research at Lamar University (LU). This MRI REU program will support 3-4 students to participate in the HPCC-related research projects.
The REU supplement of this MRI grant will support 3-4 undergraduate students majoring in STEM fields to
involve in the following research activities:
(1) Participate in HPCC enabled research projects to map real-world applications to high performance computing system.
(2) Design and implement new parallel algorithms for research projects to facilitate the use of HPCC.
(3) Transform existing algorithms in the computational area to efficient programming code for modern HPCC architectures.
(4) Collaborate with PI and co-PIs working on the HPCC training workshops for faculty and students and summer camp for K-12 teachers.
(5) Collaborate with PI and co-PIs to provide Lamar University a professionally-administered high performance computing platform.
The PI and co-PIs will mentor the students in the following ways:
(1) The PI and co-PIs will introduce the state-of-the-art techniques and research trends in high performance computing and parallel computing to the students.
(2) The students need to read relevant research papers assigned by the PI and co-PIs to accumulate necessary background knowledge in related research areas.
(3) The PI and co-PIs will assign reasonable research work with enough details to the students to help them obtain hands-on research experiences with the instrumentation.
(4) The students will meet the PI and co-PIs at weekly meetings to report research progress and discuss the following week’s research.
(5) The PI and co-PIs will supervise the students to design and implement the algorithms and conduct experiments.
(6) The PI and co-PIs will advise the students for their technical reports writing.
(7) The Office of Undergraduate Research hosts many workshops such as “How to write an abstract”, “How to present a paper”, “How to prepare a scientific poster” throughout the year. REU students will be attending those workshops.
(8) The PI and co-PIs will encourage the students to present their research in related conferences and workshops and publish academic papers in related journals. The Office of Undergraduate Research at Lamar University hosts the Texas STEM Conference and Undergraduate Research Expo each year. Students will get opportunity to present their research in these two conferences.
The PI and co-PIs will select the students using the following process and criteria:
(1) Undergraduate student participants REU Supplements must be U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, or permanent residents of the United States.
(2) The prospective students need to submit their resumes, transcripts, and reference letters online https://www.lamar.edu/forms/arts-and-sciences/computer-science/cosc-reu-application.html
(3) Based on the submitted application materials, the PI and co-PIs will contact the provided references if more information needed and generate a shortlist using the criteria:
a. Interests and motivation in conducting the research;
b. GPA, previous research experience, and research capability;
c. Economic hardship;
d. Minorities, women, veteran and disability priorities.
(4) The PI and co-PIs will interview the students on the shortlist.
(5) Three to four students (upon their agreement) will be selected from the shortlist for this REU supplement.
Each selected student will receive $1000/month support for 4-6 months.
Please send email to jing.zhang@lamar.edu if you have any questions.