REU 2024

Program Overview:

The 2024 REU program is funded by the NSF and designed to bring together undergraduate students from different universities to work together on research projects. At the end of the ten week program, each project group prepares a poster, a research paper, and a final presentation.

Program duration: 5/20/2024 (Monday) - 7/26/2024 (Friday)

Faculty mentors:

Dr. Prasad Calyam is a Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department. He also serves as the Director of MU’s Cyber Education, Research and Infrastructure Center. He is an expert in computer networking, multimedia applications, and network measurement. He has been the primary mentor of over 65 M.S./Ph.D. graduate students (including 20 Female, 3 Hispanic, and 2 African American), over 68 undergraduate students (52 supported by NSF REU program; 11 Female, 2 Hispanic and 8 African American), and 6 Postdocs. Student co-authors have heavily contributed to his over 195 peer-reviewed publications in reputed conferences and journals. He currently advises 7 Ph.D. (2 Female, 1 African American, 2 Hispanic), 6 M.S. (including 1 Female), and 4 undergraduate students. His research sponsors include: NSF, NSA, DOS, ARL, DOE, VMware, Cisco, Dell, Verizon, IBM, Huawei, Internet2, and others.

Dr. Yi Shang is a Professor and the Director of Graduate Studies in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department. He has extensive research experience on wireless sensor networks, mobile computing, and artificial intelligence, and has published over 200 journal and conference papers and received 6 patents. He has graduated 14 Ph.D. students, over 70 M.S. students, and supervised over 60 undergraduate researchers. He is currently supervising 10 Ph.D., 5 M.S., and 1 undergraduate students. His research has been supported by NSF, NIH, US Army, DARPA, Microsoft Research, Raytheon and Missouri Dept. of Conservation. He co-founded TigerAware LLC., and helped coordinate previous REU programs and a faculty mentor and Program Director.

Dr. Kannappan Palaniappan is a Curators' Distinguished Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department. He is the Director of Computational Imaging & VisAnalysis (CIVA), with projects funded by NSF, Army Research Lab, Air Force Research Laboratory, NASA, and NIH. He served as a National Academies Jefferson Science Fellow and received the NASA Public Service Medal. His research covers computer vision, high performance computing, data science and biomedical image analysis. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed publications, and mentored over 15 Posdocs, 12 Ph.D. students, 27 M.S. students, and over 30 undergraduate students. He is currently supervising 9 Ph.D. students, 2 M.S. students, 1 undergraduate student, and 2 Research Scientists, who are available to help the students in REU projects.

Dr. Khaza Anuarul Hoque is an Assistant Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department. He is the Director of the Dependable Cyber-Physical Systems (DCPS) Laboratory with projects funded by NSF and DoD. His research area includes cyber-physical systems, formal methods, cyber security, and safe AI/ML. He has published over 35 peer-reviewed publications. He is currently supervising 4 Ph.D. students, graduated 1 M.S. student, and has mentored several REU projects in the past. He is a senior member of IEEE and a member of ACM and AAAS.

Evaluator, Dr. Se Woong Lee is an Associate Professor in the Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis (ELPA) Department at University of Missouri-Columbia. Dr. Lee earned his Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and joined ELPA in 2016. In broad strokes, his research focuses on developing innovative ways to measure, evaluate, and improve educational policy in ways that meaningfully impact or address issues challenging educators today. His research primarily focuses on analyzing important aspects of education policy, particularly on educator labor market, educator effectiveness, and educator quality. His work on examining cumulative effect of teacher quality on students’ educational success was recognized by the American Educational Research Association with a highly competitive AERA Dissertation Grant, and received Outstanding Dissertation Award from University of Wisconsin-Madison in Education Policy area.


Graduate Student Coordinator:

Upasana Roy
Upasana Roy
University of Missouri, Columbia

Upasana Roy Upasana is currently pursuing her MS degree in CS from University of Missouri – Columbia in the department of EECS. Her research interest aligns with harnessing the power of AI into material and chemical sciences.
Email:u.roy@mail.missouri.edu
Phone: +1 (573) 514-4778

Student Researchers:

Alia Stevens
Alia Stevens
University of North Georgia,
Dahlonega, GA

Cassidy Bates
Cassidy Bates
Drury University,
Springfield, MO

Derek Nissen
Derek Nissen
University of Missouri, Columbia, MO

Eric Garcia
Eric Garcia
Columbia College,
Columbia, MO

Ethan Grassia
Ethan Grassia
Loyola University,
Chicago, IL

JenayaMonroe
Jenaya Monroe
University of Missouri,
Columbia, MO

Kevin Kostage
Kevin Kostage
Florida Gulf Coast University,
Fort Myers, FL

Nicholas Cope
Nicholas Cope
University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill, NC

Tianyang Yu
Tianyang Yu
Grinnell College,
Grinnell, IA

Yuri Batan
Yuri Batan
Ohio State University,
Columbus, OH

Work schedule
  1. 8 hours, 9am-12pm and 1-6pm in the office or in a lab.
  2. You are required to sign up a time sheet posted at the office every day.
  3. Use the Microsoft Teams channel to interact virtually with the REU Site group.

Weekly program meeting: Tuesday, 10-12pm or 2-4pm, in 222 Naka Hall (unless announced differently). All mentors are welcome to attend.

Weekly research journal of each team due: 5pm every Friday - report daily research activities.


Schedule

DATE TIME ACTIVITY






5/20
Monday
222 Naka Hall
10:00 am - 10:30 am
10:30 am - 11:00 am
11:00 am - 12:30 pm
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Orientation & Welcome
Student Introductions
REU Project Presentation by REU mentors
Project Team Assignments
Pre-survey, paperwork, self-study

5/21
Tuesday
222 Naka Hall
10:00 am - 11:30 am


2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Why & how to do research by Dr. Calyam
a) How to read and write research papers
b) How to prepare and give a technical presentation

c) Computer science ethics. IRB training.
by Dr. Shang/Dr. Calyam

5/22
Wednesday
222 Naka Hall
10:00 am - 11:30 am
1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
Computational Imaging & VisAnalysis by Dr. Pal
Cyber Physical Systems by Dr. Hoque
5/23
Thursday
222 Naka Hall
3:00 pm - 4:30 pm Software Defined Networking by Dr. Calyam


5/28
Tuesday
222 Naka Hall


10:00 am - 12:00 pm


2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Weekly program meeting - Team project presentation (project goals, milestones, OKRs, initial literature survey results). All graduate mentors are encouraged to attend. Led by Dr. Shang/Dr. Calyam
Dr. Shang/Dr. Calyam Tech Talk
6/4
Tuesday
222 Naka Hall

10:00 am - 12:00 pm

2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Weekly program meeting. All graduate mentors are encouraged to attend. Led by Dr. Ufuktepe

Dr. Ufuktepe Tech Talk
6/6
Thursday
1:00 pm - 3:00 pm MU Data Center Tour by Bill McIntosh
6/10
Monday
222 Naka Hall
2:45 pm - 3:45 pm Discussion on Related Work and Problem Specification. All graduate mentors are encouraged to attend. Led by Dr. Calyam


6/11
Tuesday
222 Naka Hall

10:00 am - 12:00 pm


Weekly program meeting. All graduate mentors are encouraged to attend. Led by Dr. Ufuktepe
6/13
Thursday
8:30 am - 9:20 am Visit to Columbia Public Schools EEE summer school, grades 6-8
(Co-ordinated by Mr. Matt Leuchtmann)


6/18
Tuesday
222 Naka Hall


10:00 am - 12:00 pm


2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Weekly program meeting. All graduate mentors are encouraged to attend. Led by Dr. Hoque
Dr. Hoque Tech Talk
6/25
Tuesday

222 Naka Hall


10:00 am - 12:00 pm


2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Weekly program meeting. All graduate mentors are encouraged to attend. Midterm presentation
Midterm report in IEEE LaTeX style due. Led by Dr.Calyam
Dr. Pal Tech Talk
7/2
Tuesday
222 Naka Hall


10:00 am - 12:00 pm


2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Weekly program meeting. All graduate mentors are encouraged to attend. Led by Dr. Pal
Dr. Shang Tech Talk
7/9
Tuesday
222 Naka Hall
10:00 am - 12:00 pm Weekly program meeting. All graduate mentors are encouraged to attend. Led by Dr. Hoque
7/16
Tuesday
222 Naka Hall
10:00 am - 12:00 pm Weekly program meeting

(Abstract Submission for Poster Forum). All graduate mentors are encouraged to attend. Led by Dr. Shang
7/24
Wednesday

222 Naka Hall
10:00 am - 12:30 pm Final presentation
Final report in IEEE LaTeX style due
All graduate mentors are encouraged to attend.
Led by Dr. Calyam and Dr. Shang
TBD
Thursday
Memorial Union
12:00 pm - 4:30 pm Poster Forum (MU Summer Undergraduate
Research and Creative Achievements Forum)
7/26
Friday
222 Naka Hall
10:00 am - 12:00 pm Post-survey, wrap-up

NOTE: We encourage students to consider submitting their final project reports as papers (full papers, or short papers) to venues such as: the annual National Workshops for REU Research in Networking and Systems (REUNS), IEEE CCNC, IEEE ICNC, IEEE NCA and others with July/August 2024 deadlines.

  • uSucceed: Pedagogical Agent guided Virtual Reality Learning Environment for CyberSecurity Education
    Advisors: Dr. Prasad Calyam, Dr. Noah Glaser
    Graduate Student Mentors: Sai Shreya Nuguri, Shangman (Eunice) Li, Anirudh Kambhampati
    Research Students: Cassidy Bates, Alia Stevens

  • Hardware trojan detection via In-context Learning of Large Language Models
    Advisors: Dr. Khaza Anuarul Hoque, Dr. Prasad Calyam
    Graduate Student Mentors: Ripan Kumar Kundu
    Research Students: Eric Garcia, Ethan Grassia

  • Detecting Code Vulnerability Inducing and Vulnerability Fixing Changes with Deep Learning by Using Graph Matching
    Advisors: Dr. Ekincan Ufuktepe, Dr. Prasad Calyam, Dr. Kannappan Palaniappan
    Graduate Student Mentors: Miles Farmer
    Research Students: Yuri Batan, Nicholas Cope

  • Federated Learning-enabled Computation Offloading Optimization for Drone Swarms
    Advisors: Dr. Prasad Calyam, Dr. Kannappan Palaniappan, Dr. Reshmi Mitra
    Graduate Student Mentors: Juan Mogollon, Trevontae' Haughton, Chandrakanth Vipparla
    Research Students: Kevin Kostage, Jenaya Monroe

  • Developing Digital Phenotyping and AI/ML Methods to Support Addiction Research
    Advisors: Dr. Yi Shang , Dr. Tim Trull
    Graduate Student Mentors: Reyva Babtista, Justin Varghese, Songxi Chen
    Research Students: Derek Nissen, Tianyang ( Tim ) Yu

Computer networks basics

Research advice

Software-Defined Networking related materials

Computer Science Ethics

IRB training (http://research.missouri.edu/irb/CITI_Instructions) to receive IRB certification

  • Responsible Conduct of Research courses
  • Human Subject Research courses

LaTeX resources

Prior REU project examples as best practices to follow:







  • NSF  Sponsored by the National Science Foundation (Award CNS-2243619)

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