SFI Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU)

Opportunity Description:

The SFI Undergraduate Complexity Research program (UCR) program provides a ten-week residential research experience during which students develop innovative research projects in collaboration with an SFI mentor. The program asks students to discard traditional disciplinary boundaries, and combine concepts and tools from the physical, natural, and social sciences. This allows students to ask big questions about real-world complex systems using the rigorous methods employed at the Santa Fe Institute. The program is designed to assist students in developing their own research questions and projects in close collaboration with the SFI faculty and postdoctoral fellows.

It has become increasingly vital for students across the sciences to gain computational and mathematical skills: the ability to translate real-world systems into quantitative models, carry out computational experiments, analyze these experiments using statistics, and compare results with real-world data.  Students need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of multiple types of models — such as differential equations, discrete stochastic processes, and agent-based simulations — and judge which are useful for a given scientific question. At the same time, there is the need to combine these quantitative techniques with knowledge about specific systems in order to address the most important and frontier questions of the 21st century. The SFI UCR program is designed to meet these 21st-century needs through an exchange of quantitative techniques and specific knowledge.

The UCRs naturally form a tight-knit and supportive community, facilitated by living together in a campus setting and participating in a variety of social activities. Students are encouraged to, and in practice do, support each other socially and academically. Given the multi-disciplinary nature of the students and the program, students support each other using their respective strengths: a math major might help a biologist with a calculation; a computer science major might help coding and analyzing an algorithm; and a social or behavioral science major might help transform and analyze experimental data.

he program recruits undergraduates from many different majors, ranging from computer science to physics, mathematics, biology, and the social sciences. We pair these students with mentors from many different scientific backgrounds, who guide the UCRs through projects that cross multiple fields. Recent project areas have included natural language processing, topic modeling, epidemiology, network theory, cell biology, and statistical physics. Projects have ranged from simulation to data analysis to proving theorems.

Students are in residence in Santa Fe for approximately 10 weeks, from June 7 to August 15, 2020. Prior to their SFI residency, students are encouraged to complete the online course “Introduction to Complexity” available on SFI’s Complexity Explorer (complexityexplorer.org). Throughout the summer, students are offered tutorials on the basics of data analysis, including concepts from computation, linear algebra, and statistics. Tutorials are also offered on science writing, presenting research, applying for jobs in science and how to pick a graduate school that is right for you.

Support

Housing and meals are provided at no cost to the student. Students reside in double-occupancy rooms with shared bathrooms at a nearby college in Santa Fe. Because Santa Fe lacks a full public transportation system, we encourage interns who can bring private transportation to do so. They can arrange to be reimbursed for travel to the institute and back to campus each day. A stipend of $600/week is also provided to students.

Minimum Qualifications and/or Eligibility Requirements: 

For the purposes of this program, an undergraduate student is a student who is enrolled in a degree program (part-time or full-time) leading to a baccalaureate or associate degree. Students transferring from one institution to another who are enrolled at neither institution during the intervening summer may participate. College seniors graduating in Spring/Summer 2020 are not eligible. High school graduates who have been accepted at an undergraduate institution but who have not yet started their undergraduate study are also eligible to apply. Students must be able to attend all ten weeks of the program and start on Sunday, June 7.

Strong mathematical skills and experience with a programming language are favorably considered. Students from all backgrounds in the physical, natural, and social sciences are invited to participate. Applicants are welcome from any country. International students will need to be sponsored on an F-1 visa by their home institution (contact your international office at your university to inquire about CPT/OPT status).

Women, students from underrepresented groups, and students from institutions with limited research opportunities are especially encouraged to apply.

Application Process: 

Application Requirements

All applicants need to complete an online application. The application will require the following items (application tasks will guide you): 

• Completed application form
• One (1) letter of recommendation from a professor or advisor (see application for details). A second letter of recommendation can be requested (optional).
• Current resume or CV
• Statement of research interests (see application for details).
• Transcript from each college or university attended. Be sure to request your transcripts from the registrar sufficiently in advance so that you can upload it to your application by the January deadline.