Overview
CIR Undergraduate Fellows will be engaged in a variety of activities which will provide training and research skill development, broad exposure to a variety of problems in the mathematical sciences, and an in-depth experience with an interdisciplinary research project.
I. Collaborative Research Project
In order to experience statistics or applied or computational math in depth, Fellows will participate in a substantive long term research project over the course of at least one year as a member of an Interdisciplinary Research Team (IRT). Each member of the IRT will develop a thorough understanding of the subject area research question through study and regular meetings with the domain expert and MSCS faculty mentors. Each IRT will present their findings in the form of a poster, paper, and oral presentation.
II. Short Term Consultations
In order to be exposed to the breadth and variety of problems statisticians and applied mathematicians encounter, Fellows will staff the CIR at least one hour per week to answer inquiries related to short term statistical computing and data analysis questions of faculty or students.
III. Student Seminar Participation
Fellows will attend a weekly seminar designed to create community, develop research skills, and provide a forum for discussing ongoing research in different subject areas. In addition, Fellows will learn about graduate training and careers in statistics and related areas.
CIR Fellowships are awarded on a competitive basis to qualified students; continuation as a Fellow is contingent upon satisfactory progress toward a statistics concentration and active participation in Fellow activities. As a CIR Fellow, you engage in research-related activity 5-8 hours per week during the academic year. Fellows receive 0.5 credit per semester through MSCS 389: MSCS Research.
This experience will translate well to nearly any future activity, whether it is graduate or professional school or employment. Besides course credit, CIR Fellows can expect to gain the following set of skills and experiences:
- Functioning as part of a research team
- Research Question Formulation & Design
- Data Management
- Familiarity with Statistical Analyses
- Experience with Statistical computing packages (especially R)
- Techniques for communicating research to a variety of audiences through:
One-on-one consulting
Small group dynamics
Written scientific manuscript
Poster presentation
Oral presentation