REU Site for Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing and Information Retrieval

The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS) has funding from the National Science Foundation for an REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) for Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing and Information Retrieval. The notification for the funding came in early summer of 2009.

UCCS is a predominantly undergraduate institution with strong emphasis on undergraduate participation in research. As of Spring 2011, UCCS enrolls 9000 students of which 6200 are undergraduates. UCCS has been ranked as a top Western university every year since 2002 by US News and World Report. US News and World Report has ranked the College of Engineering at UCCS as one of the best Masters level engineering colleges in the country.

Colorado Springs is a beautiful city, only miles from the famed Pikes Peak sitting atop the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. There are many things to do outdoors as well as it has a decent city life. It's a city with about 500,000 people in the metropolitan area.

The objective of the REU site is to expose bright and motivated undergraduates who want to pursue advanced careers in Computer Science, Computer Engineering and related fields to work on hands-on research projects in AI, NLP, Computer Vision, Information Retrieval and related areas. Although the research activities will be mostly performed at UCCS, we will work in close collaboration with our industry partner, The MITRE Corporation. Our contact at MITRE is Dr. Suzette Stoutenburg, a Principal Scientist. Suzette completed her Ph.D. in 2009 working under the supervision of Dr. Kalita. Her dissertation was on the topic of ontology alignment.

2009 REU Program: Students and Projects

2010 REU Program: Students and Projects

2011 REU Program: Students and Projects

2011 REU Program

The 2011 REU program will be held between the 6th of June and the 5th of August (the dates are tentative at this time, but will be firmed up soon). Students are requested to arrive on the Thursday (June 2nd) or Friday (June 3rd) prior to the start date. This will enable you to do the paper work necessary to get paid and also to know the environment a bit. If you arrive on June 3rd, make sure you have time for paper work in the afternoon. We will make arrangement to pick you up at the airport in Colorado Springs if you want. The students can leave during the weekend following the finish date. You can contact our Grants Administrator Patricia Rea as soon as possible after you have been selected, for travel arrangements.

• Qualifications
• Important Dates: The deadline for submitting a completed application is February 21, 2011. We will meet during the weekend of the 26th of February, 2011, to make preliminary decisions. If we receive your application before that, we will consider it.
• Stipend: $475/week during the summer for full-time research. Some interns may work fewer than full-time hours and in such cases, the pay will be prorated. Most interns are expected to be full-time. Interns are expected to put in 8 hours of work per day. Research should be your focus during the summer. Since we are paying for a lot more than 8 hours of work, interns are expected to focus on doing well on their projects, whatever it takes.
• Additional Benefits: We will pay each student $25/day for food if you are staying on campus. Food Service on campus during the summer is not great, but there are several eating establishments within walking distance (15 minutes, say). If you are a local student (e.g., from UCCS or CC), you can stay on campus like anyone else, or if you decide to stay at home, we will pay $15/day for food during the summer. Dorms on campus are new and have excellent views of the Rocky Mountains. We will pay for the rental of your dorm rooms if you are staying on campus. We probably will have 2-3 suites for the REU students. In 2010, our students stayed in Alpine Village. We will provide the basics: linens, some pots and pans and utensils.
• Application: Please send a cover letter, an (un)official transcript, current vita containing pertinent course work, related experience, and professional and academic goals, a phone number for interview to Dr. Jugal Kalita. Please request two individuals who know you as professor or supervisor to send letters of reference (which can be an email) to kalita@eas.uccs.edu.
• Project Ideas: We had to list a bunch of projects in the funded proposal. We have additional projects as well. Please look at the final papers written by the 2010 REU students. Your projects will be on similar topics. Once you have been selected for a position, we will be in touch with you so that you have a project topic before you arrive. Each students will work on an individual project although there will be other projects with similar topics. Individual work will be emphasized although collaboration will be encouraged wherever possible. In 2010, we published five conference papers with REU students as co-authors. In 2011, we published one paper with REU students as co-author. We have submitted three more papers, which are being reviewed at this time.
• Please look at the Web sites of Professors Kalita and Boult if you would like to know more about them.
• No REU program in 2013 and beyond.
• For 2014 and beyond, here is the new REU site.