Undergraduate Research Assistantship (URA) Program
Program Support
The URA Program is partly funded by our
VIGRE Grant.
This program provides
undergraduate math majors the opportunity to learn about
mathematics research by working with a faculty advisor on
a research project. Duties include solving mathematical
problems and writing a final report for web publication.
Program participants, called undergraduate research assistants,
get paid up to $1500.00 per semester (at $8.50/hour).
There is also support
available for one or two months of summer research
($1250 per month). Finally, support to cover
travel expenses to undergraduate research conferences
is also available.
To learn more about the program and to apply, keep reading below,
then explore
all the links to the left associated with this URA Program website.
To learn more about the program and to apply, please see
the URA
Website.
Examples of what other URAs have done
The best way to learn about the activities of past URAs is to
check out the participants list,
which has links to proposals, reports, or sometimes even entire project
websites.
Quick overview of how it all works
- You find a faculty sponsor and agree to planned activities. There
are three ways to go about this:
- Look through our list of research project
ideas submitted by faculty members. If one of those ideas piques
your interest, contact that faculty member to further discuss
the possibilities.
- Perhaps you already have one or more faculty members in mind you'd
like to work with, but are unsure on what you could work with them, or
don't like the particular project they might have on the list just
mentioned. Simply approach your favorite faculty member and discuss
alternate possibilities with them. Faculty often are open to working
on projects that they might not have bothered to submit to our list.
- Perhaps you have a particular project in mind (for example,
there's a particular area of mathematics you'd like to learn more
about), but don't know which faculty member you might work with on
that. The URA Program Coordinator will
be glad to help you locate an appropriate faculty member, and the
friendly advisors in the
Math Center will
be equally happy to assist you.
- You write a brief description of your proposed activities, and your faculty sponsor
writes a letter of support. The span of time for the proposed activities
could be one semester, or one or two months of summer. Your project
can also be a continuation of a previous research project.
(For example, a summer proposal might be a continuation of research from
the previous semester.)
- You submit an application to the URA Program Coordinator.
- You engage in the proposed research and meet regularly with your faculty sponsor to adjust the direction of the project according to the nature of the progress.
- You submit a final report or website describing the results of the research.
Program History
The URA Program was created in Fall 1996 by
William McCallum, who was Associate Head for Undergraduate Studies
at that time. Robert Indik has been the URA Program Coordinator
since 1999.
URA activities have increased since 2000 under the support
of the VIGRE Grant.
Program Coordinators
