exploreCSR 2020-2021: Computing Research

Virtual Workshop Date: May 28th-29th, 2021.
Virtual Research Internship Date: June 7th - July 30th ( 8 weeks ), 2021.

Note: Internships are limited and will be competitive, please apply early! Internships are matched based on the research interests filled out in the application form.

Welcome

The University of Texas RGV Computer Science is proud to partner with Google Research to offer exploreCSR for a rich research experience for undergraduate students. We encourage students from historically-underrepresented groups to apply, including but not limited to -- Hispanic, women, students of color, first-generation college students, students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and LGBTQ+ students.

Our goal is to expose students to all aspects of computing research from faculty from different universities, gain their confidence to pursue graduate studies, develop practical skills, and achieve a sense of belonging in computing research.

This workshop covers five research areas:

  1. data mining and artificial intelligence
  2. pervasive computing and healthcare
  3. distributed databases and its applications
  4. computational mathematics
  5. robotics and assistive technology

About

Who can apply
undergraduate students (including graduating seniors). The program in this year is virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic and in the US Central time zone.
Experience needed
no prior research experience necessary. Coursework in introduction of computer science, calculus, linear algebra, and probability are helpful.
Research activities
(1) workshop participants will be paired with a faculty mentor throughout the two-day event
(2) internship participants will be paired with one or two faculty mentors through a eight-week research project.

Multiple projects are available, including literature reviews, replications of prior work, improvements of existing research projects, or new independent research projects. The internship participants will present their work in posters at the end of July, 2021 and may extend to write and publish those into short papers.

Time commitment
the workshop is two day events and 12 faculty will present and engage with students. The summer research internship is a eight-week long expereince. We expect research group meetings, mentor meetings, and project work to take a minimum of 4 hours per day.
Stipend
to offset the opportunity cost while attending the workshop, each workshop participant will receive a $25 stipend. Each internship participant will receive $2,000 in total (4 hours a day with $12.5 per hour).

Faculty Mentors

Students who participate in the program will be mentored by one of the following CS faculty members from different universities:

...
Beiyu Lin

University of Texas RGV

...
Xiaowei Jia

University of Pittsburgh

...
Tapomayukh Bhattacharjee

Cornell University

...
Tianxing Li

Michigan State University

...
Wei Li

DePaul University

...
Hao Wang

Louisiana State University

...
Yongle Zhang

Purdue University

...
Ganapati Bhat

Washington State University

...
Zhiqian Chen

Mississippi State University

...
Zhiqiang Tao

Santa Clara University

...
Hailu Xu

California State University, Long Beach

Program Schedule

Throughout the workshop and summer of 2021, participants will pursue their own research projects under the guidance of their faculty.

Date Event
April 1st Application open
May 1st Application deadline
May 15th Admission decision announced.
We greatly appreciate for all the 760 applications and selected 128 students for the workshops (17% acceptance rate) and several for the internships.
Each application was reviewed by two committee members with a total of 6 faculty in the committee team.
We annouced via email to the selected participants for the workshop while still working on and confirming the final internships.
May 21st Program kick-off meeting (slides)
May 28-29th Participations in UTRGV CS Undergraduate Research Workshop Schedule
June 7th - July 30th Internships with faculty (poster presentations)
Workshop Group Picture
Intern Group Picture

How to Apply

To apply for the 2021 program, please fill out the online application form by May 1 2021.

FAQ

Yes.

Yes. Please note that UTRGV is on Central Time, many of our events will be in those working hours. In addition, stipend support may not work for people who are not in the US due to some constraints.

The goal of the exploreCSR program is to support underrepresented students to pursue computing research (the program). Though we consider all applicants, we focus on this goal.

Not this time.

Short one paragraph is good. We would like to match you to the right people and projects.

It should go through. If you're worried, please submit another one.

You should be able to get around this by filling out the form while logged into to a personal Google account.

Contact

Please feel free to reach out to us at explorecsr.utrgv@gmail.com

Acknowledgment

This work was funded by an unrestricted gift from Google.