REU Program at the UW

The National Science Foundation supports Research Experiences for Undergraduates in various disciplines at selected universities. Readers of this newsletter are familiar with the fact that the University of Washington Mathematics Department has had an REU site since 1988, directed by Jim Morrow. The students in the program are talented undergraduates selected in a competitive process from universities throughout the United States; in Summer 2004, students came from the University of Washington, Brandeis University, University of Indiana, CalTech, LSU, Illinois Institute of Technology, University of Chicago, and Western Illinois University. The program is nationally recognized; an article about the program appeared in the September 2004 issue of Math Horizons.

In 2004, the NSF VIGRE grant supported two TAs and four additional UW undergraduate student participants, and for the first time the Bob and Elaine Phelps Scholarship was awarded to support one more UW student, bringing the total number of undergraduates in the program to thirteen, the largest number ever to participate in our REU.

The students work on projects in the general area of "inverse problems for electrical networks." After a week of lectures and reading, students start their own research. Students make interim oral reports and eventually write a research paper with their problem solution. Sometimes the work is of the quality to appear in journals and be reported at national meetings.

Please visit our REU web site. This website contains an archive of past papers written by REU students, plus photos of the participants and other information.

Jim Morrow