The National Science Foundation has selected the University of Central Arkansas to become the first Computer Science NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduate Students (REU) site in Arkansas.
UCA is one of the seven newly selected REU sites across the nation. Currently, there are about 60 sites sponsored by the Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Directory of NSF. The primary objective of the REU program is to encourage talented undergraduate students to pursue graduate study and research careers in computer science by providing them a competitive research experience.
UCA’s Computer Science Department will receive a $324,977 grant over a three-year period for the program. Dr. Vamsi Paruchuri and Dr. Yu Sun, both faculty of UCA’s Computer Science Department, will lead the project.
The REU site at UCA is titled Applied Research in Health Information Technology. The program will attract ten talented undergraduates nationwide to UCA to gain nine week-long competitive research experiences during the summer. Each of these students will receive a $4,500 stipend in addition to about $2,000 for travel and accommodation for participation.
Seven faculty members at UCA will work with the students on carefully designed research projects range from medical image processing to health informatics and secure and privacy preserving electronic health records transmission.
“I am confident that the students participating in this program will receive the very best research and educational experience,” said Dr. Steven Runge, Dean of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. “Computational thinking and health informatics are critically important research areas for our nation. I am confident that these students will return to their home institutions with the knowledge and confidence to build upon their work at UCA at their home institutions.”
The interdisciplinary nature of this REU program offers students the right opportunities to perceive the importance and applications of computer science and continue their education in this field. The research environment will offer the participants the opportunity to interact with computer scientists, medical physicists, and industry personnel.
“The very positive impacts of this REU project will be much broader than only on these on site students. The success of these students will be role models for their peers at their home institutions nationwide,” said Vamsi Paruchuri, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science. “More importantly, with the special efforts of recruiting students from underrepresented ethnic groups and female students, and of the K-12 outreach activities of this project, we can expect long term strong positive impacts on the socio and economical status of the Natural State and beyond.”
Being selected as an NSF REU site is a nationwide recognition of the outstanding quality of STEM education at the University of Central Arkansas.
“The funding of this project represents what I believe will be the first of many examples of national recognition for the outstanding departments and programs that we have in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Central Arkansas,” said Runge. “Along with this recognition comes the responsibility to continue to deliver programs that are of the highest quality and that are continuously striving to improve. We will meet that responsibility.”
More details can be found at http://sun0.cs.uca.edu/reu/.
