CREU: Collaborative Research
Experience for Undergraduates in
Computer Science and Engineering

Andrea Danyluk Program Co-Director (CRA-W)

Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones Program Co-Director (CDC)

Contact:

CREU Projects Since 1998

The Computing Research Association's Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) and the Coalition to Diversify Computing (CDC), are pleased to announce a program that involves undergraduate student research. The goal of this initiative is to increase the numbers of women and minorities who continue on to graduate school in computer science, engineering, and allied disciplines.

The program, called Collaborative Research Experience for Undergraduates (CREU), is designed to provide positive research experiences for teams of undergraduates who will work during the academic year and optionally the following summer at their home institutions. Formerly administered as two separate programs - CREU and MRO-W - the program has been expanded to include not only computer science and engineering research, but also multidisciplinary research.

Each research team will consist of undergraduate students and sponsoring faculty members. In the case of multidisciplinary projects, each team will consist of faculty from both the computing and non-computing fields as well as students from these respective fields. For example, a project in computational biology might consist of a computer science major, a biology major, a computer science professor, and a biology professor.

The program typically begins in the fall and runs either through the academic year or through the following summer. The underrepresented students will each receive a stipend of $3,000 for their work during the academic year and $4,000 during the summer. Each project may also request up to $1,500 to be used for special equipment, travel, or supporting materials.

Students will be required to maintain a weekly journal and website documenting their progress on the project. A mid-project progress report will also be required. At the end of the project, students will be required to submit a one-page summary of their work. These summaries will be posted on the CRA-W web site. In addition, students are strongly encouraged to submit papers to appropriate journals and to present papers or posters at national or regional conferences. The program provides travel funds to support such participation and past CREU participants have found such activities to be extremely valuable.

For a summary of all undergraduate research programs sponsored by CRA-W, see http://www.cra.org/Activities/craw/UgradResearch/.

General CREU Guidelines

Team Membership

• Teams consisting of all women or all underrepresented minorities are especially encouraged to apply.

• Projects will be considered that also include student(s) from non-underrepresented groups. Because of funding limitations, however, financial support is available only for students from underrepresented groups.  

• Teams of two to four students are strongly encouraged, but a limited number of proposals consisting of a single student working with a faculty mentor will be considered.  

• While we expect most proposals to be from students at their home institutions, a limited number of distributed teams with remote mentors will be considered.

Evaluation Criteria

• The project should further the goal of the CREU program to increase the numbers of women and students from other underrepresented groups who continue on to graduate school in computer science and engineering.

• The scope and goals of the project should be reasonable and realistic, based upon the students' prior education and experience.

• The plan for the project should be well-defined and should describe the collaborative approach to be taken. The proposal should identify the expected role and contribution of each member of the team.

• The project should warrant background research on the part of the students, and should have an active, investigative and experiential nature by which the students can discover their results.

• The project should enable student empowerment, leadership development, confidence-building, and skill-building in project management.

• The proposal should be complete and well-written.

• Students should be actively involved in writing the proposal, with guidance and support of the sponsoring faculty mentor(s).

• The students should have good potential for doing independent work.

• The sponsor(s) should have the background necessary to oversee the research and there should be an appropriate strategy for keeping the students on track.

• The sponsor(s) should understand their responsibility to mentor the students in regard to their consideration of graduate school.

• The sponsor(s) and students must have enough time to devote to the research project so weekly meetings can occur with additional independent work taking place outside of these meetings.

• It is assumed that all students will be active participants in the project throughout the entire project. It is expected that students will spend approximately 10 - 15 hours per week on the project during the academic year and 40 hours for 10 weeks during the optional summer.

• If the participants have had previous CREU funding, performance on the earlier project will be considered.

Applications

Applications should include the following information

• Project title

• Participant names

• Project description

• Specific questions to be addressed; hypotheses to be investigated

• Methods to be used, including background research to be studied

• References

• Impact on the goal of CREU

• A description of student activities and responsibilities on the project

• A description of faculty activities and responsibilities on the project

• Project timeline

• Budget - Include all funds requested

• Role of the CREU project within the larger scope of this research project (if the CREU project is part of a larger project)

• A complete transcript for each student to be funded.

The proposal should be submitted as a single file in pdf format to creu@cra.org.

In addition, each student will be required to complete a form with the following information

• Name

• Project title and college/university

• Year in school (sophomore, junior, senior)

• Anticipated date of graduation

• Major and GPA

• Gender

• (Optional) Minority status (ethnicity, disability, etc)

• Email address and mailing address

• List of courses taken relevant to this project

• Any other information pertinent to the proposal

• Confirmation of expectations and hours worked on the project

Each faculty member will be required to complete a form with the following information

• Name

• Project title

• School/Department Address

• Email address

• Phone number

• Relevant background in this research area

Timeline

Application Deadline: May 1, 2009
Notification of Awards: will be emailed June 9

Project Research: academic year 2009-10 plus optional summer 2010
Midterm Progress Report: January 5, 2010
Final Summary Report: May 15, 2010 for academic year projects; August 15, 2010 for projects with summer extension

Questions

Please see the list of Frequently Asked Questions for useful information.

Send any inquiries or questions about the CREU program to

Sponsorship

This initiative is currently sponsored by the Computing Research Association's Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) in cooperation with the National Science Foundation.