Interdisciplinary Research Experience in Computational Sciences

This Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) project is a ten week program where students work collaboratively on a wide variety of computational science projects. We completed our 11th year with our first virtual REU. We are planning an in person experience in summer 2022.

The Center for Computation & Technology (CCT) at Louisiana State University (LSU) provides an ideal setting for the REU student to become familiar with interdisciplinary research. With research groups exploring gravitational waves, complex emergent phenomena in material science, or computational music, the participants work on cutting edge research in Computational Sciences.

The students learn how to use the most current cyberinfrastructure tools with individually designed training sessions targeted to their specific degree of preparation. In addition, since most CCT research groups collaborate with international researchers, REU students are exposed to how international collaborations work.

This program involves ten students every summer. If the program is virtual each student receives a stipend of $8,000. If in person each student receives a stipend of $6,000, free housing in university dormitories, and up to $600 in travel expenses to and from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

We invite interested students and their faculty mentor to browse through this site and consider applying for these positions.

Important Dates

• December 23, 2021: Application opens - Apply here.
• February 28, 2022: Application deadline.
• March 20, 2022: Notification of decision.
• May 23, 2022 through July 30, 2022: Program dates.

Read the blog written by Rachel Gibson about her experience in the program during the summer of 2019.

Students who are considering undergrad summer research or applying to graduate school might find the following links useful:

• For undergraduates: more than 650 paid Summer Undergrad Research Opportunities.
• For Financial Support in Graduate School: Bridge to the Doctorate, IGERT and NSF Grad Research Fellowship programs provide generous stipend and tuition support for students through the National Science Foundation.
• For NASA-supported internships, fellowships and scholarships

Learn more about LSU and CCT.

Rachel Gibson's video about her experience in the summer of 2019 won second place in the 2021 NSF CISE REU PI Meeting.

Industry Panel at the 2019 REU Program (July 26, 2019) with Elia Brodsky of Pine Biotech, Blake Gonzales of Dell Technologies, Christian Holdsworth of DXC Technology, and Josh Sonnier, Ph.D., of CGI Federal. Moderator Lou Guthrie of Louisiana Economic Development-FastStart.

Clinton S. Willson, LSU Civil & Environmental Engineering, presents "Getting to 'See' the River and How We Use Physical Modeling for Research, Education and Outreach" at the 2018 REU Program (July 25, 2018).

Chris Smith, Google LLC, presents "CodeWorld: Teaching at the Intersection of Algebra, Computer Science, and Creativity" at the 2018 REU Program (June 6, 2018).

Dr. Gabriela Gonzalez, LSU Physics & Astronomy, presents "Einstein, Black Holes, and Gravitational Waves" at the 2017 REU Program (July 26, 2017).

Anna Baglione and Tyler Spears, 2015 REU participants, are engaged and getting married June 2019. Congratulations to both!

Anna Baglione, 2015 REU participant, presents a poster at the Council on Undergraduate Research's Research Experiences for Undergraduates Symposium in Arlington, Virginia. On October 25-26, 2015, Anna attended the REU Symposium organized by the Council on Undergraduate Research and the National Science Foundation, and presented a poster featuring her research done during the CCT REU. According to Anna, "this summer really gave me a taste of graduate life and research. Having always been an independent learner and thinker, I was both inspired and challenged by newness of the Orchestra of Things project."

Federico Cifuentes-Urtubey (2015 REU) and Matt Curtis (2015 LA-SiGMA REU) give talks at the Gulf Coast Undergraduate Research Symposium at Rice University On October 17, 2015, both Federico Cifuentes-Urtubey (2015 REU) and Matt Curtis (2015 LA-SiGMA REU) were selected to present their summer research at the Gulf Coast Undergraduate Research Symposium at Rice University. According to Federico, "this REU was a great learning experience, and the information I gained will be useful for both future classes and my future research." For Matt, "(the REU) experience has reaffirmed my choice in wanting to become a materials engineer."

Francis Afzal, 2012 & 2013 REU participant, presents a paper at SPIE Conference 2013 On August 2013, Francis attended the conference "Next Generation (Nano) Photonic and Cell Technologies for Solar Energy Conversion IV", which is part of SPIE Solar Energy + Technology, to present his paper "Multilayer structures with highly directional absorptivity for solar thermophotovoltaics" in San Diego, California. "Doing in depth research on this topic has helped me gain some degree of confidence in my own ability to understand a complex subject and has made me more interested in reading scientific papers."

Michael Thomas, 2010 participant, receives the TeraGrid Conference 2010 Best Student Poster Award "The REU has been instrumental in exposing me to the world of research," Michael Thomas said. "Before this summer I had never been involved in research before. I had certainly never before been exposed to creating posters, writing scientific papers, and having research peer reviewed. The summer REU program has been invaluable at helping me decide where I want to take my future, and helped me narrow my interests so I can pursue that future with a razor-like focus."

Jitu Das, 2010 REU participant "The internship at your lab was really helpful. I hardly knew anything about GPUs before, and now I'll be working on improving CUDA. I'm also doing research now at CMU for calculating the optimal walking trajectories for robots using GPUs" - Jitu Das, Computer Science, Robotics, Carnegie Mellon University, and 2010 participant. Jitu has also been awarded an NVidia internship on summer 2011.

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There is a great need of attracting more students to careers in STEM disciplines. In particular, computational science will only fulfill its full potential if advances in education and training of the workforce accompany the advances in hardware funded by the NSF cyberinfrastructure initiative. This REU site proposes to combine individual training with student immersion in a multidisciplinary research group to provide a rich research experience in CSci.