This summer, over 40 students participated in various sectors of the Research Experience for Undergraduates program in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University.
The visiting students worked alongside faculty mentors in the department, including co-directors of the Parasol Lab Dr. Nancy M. Amato and Dr. Lawrence Rauchwerger; Department Head Dr. Dilma Da Silva; Director of the Sketch Recognition Lab Dr. Tracy Hammond; Assistant Professor in geography with a joint appointment in computer science and engineering, Dr. Dan Golberg; Director of the Perception Sensing Instrumentation lab Dr. Ricardo Gutierrez-Osuna; Director of the Data Analytics at Texas A&M lab Dr. Xia (Ben) Hu; Assistant Professor Dr. Ruihong Huang; Professor and Associate Head for Academics Dr. John Keyser; Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Royce E. Wisenbaker Professor Dr. Valerie Taylor; and Chevron Professor II and Regents Professor Dr. Jennifer Welch.
Ten students worked under Hammond and Goldberg as part of the Texas A&M CyberHealthGIS REU program, which is a research program for undergraduate students interested in the areas of technology, geography and health.
Keyser and Huang mentored two students during the Undergraduate Student Research Grant program, which was an opportunity for students to be immersed in academic research and learn about graduate school.
Many of the students who worked with Amato and Rauchwerger in the Parasol Lab were part of the Computing Research Association for Women’s (CRA-W) Distributed Research Experience for Undergraduates (DREU) program, which is a highly selective program that matches students with a faculty mentor for a summer research experience at the faculty mentor’s home institution.
There were also high school students from the Rio Grande Valley who came to participate in the research program under Amato and Rauchwerger. Current computer science and engineering sophomore, Leslie Escalante, participated in the summer research program as a Rio Grande Valley high school student and is now an active member of the department’s honors program and holds an officer position in the student organization, Aggie Women in Computer Science.
“The summer REU experience was my first taste of the amount of time and effort needed to be a successful Aggie,” Escalante said. “Beyond the specifics of the lab, I also learned some imperative communication and understanding skills by observation and practice that I still refer to today: skills like preparing for elevator talks, five-minute talks, and presentations; basic networking; how to properly/effectively digest technical papers; and writing technical papers. Every experience has an impact, and as I continue on my second year in A&M, I'm happy the Summer REU program was my first experience in Aggieland.”
Another current student, Mustafa (Aden) Muhammad, participated in the summer REU program as a high school student. Muhammad now serves on the Texas A&M student senate and is active in the computer science and engineering branch of engineering honors.
Additionally, there were a few students from CANIETI, the Mexican National Chamber of Electronics, Telecommunication, and Information Technology. Many CANIETI students also worked alongside Taylor, Gutierrez-Osuna, Rauchwerger, Hammond, Amato and Hu.
These summer mentorship opportunities provided students with invaluable computer science learning experiences that are not always accessible where they live and exposed them to all that graduate studies in the department can offer them.