Research Experiences for Undergraduates

A significant effort has been undertaken to establish Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs). Over the last two years, the PI has directed twelve undergraduate research projects. Supplementary funds for REU will be requested if this proposal is funded. These undergraduates have worked on a wide range of projects: (i) Software design and implementation of PROTOMOL, including high performance interactive MD interfaces that were presented in an exhibit in Supercomputing 2000; (ii) Algorithm development, Mr. Trevor Cickovski and Mr. Tom Slabach were funded by the Center for Applied Mathematics at Notre Dame to do research on multiscale integrators during the past two summers; (iii) Simulation, including the hands-on setup of the binding of the anti-cancer drug to ER and DNA, this will involve a premed undergraduate in the Department of Biological Sciences. Undergraduates from Duke, Caltech, Goshen College, and Notre Dame have participated in the summer REUs sponsored by the PI's group. These research experiences have served to make some of them consider graduate school: Mr. Tom Slabach is now a graduate student under the PI's supervision, and another former student from Notre Dame, Mr. George Viamontes, is pursuing graduate studies in Computer Science with a full fellowship at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. These undergraduates have co-authored two journal papers with the PI [46,47] and two conference papers [51,48]. This proposal will enable continued research in the three aforementioned areas, and the training of talented undergraduates to pursue graduate studies related to computational biology. Currently, the PI is assisted by the graduate students and the more senior undergraduates in the supervision of these REUs.