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Running a Virtual Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) Site in Computing Systems

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Conference

2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Minneapolis, MN

Publication Date

August 23, 2022

Start Date

June 26, 2022

End Date

June 29, 2022

Conference Session

CIT Division Technical Session #7

Page Count

12

DOI

10.18260/1-2--40374

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/40374

Download Count

315

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Paper Authors

biography

Wei Zhang University of Louisville

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Dr. Wei Zhang is the professor and Chair of the Department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Louisville. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in 2003. Dr. Zhang served as an assistant/associate professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC) from 2003 to 2010 and as an associate and full professor at Virginia Commonwealth University from 2010 to 2019. His research interests are in computer architecture, compiler, real-time computing, and hardware security. Dr. Zhang has led 9 NSF projects as the PI and has published 160+ papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings. He received the 2016 Engineer of the Year Award from the Richmond Joint Engineer Council, the 2009 SIUC Excellence through Commitment Outstanding Scholar Award for the College of Engineering, and the 2007 IBM Real-time Innovation Award.

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Abstract

This paper summarizes our experiences in running the REU site in a virtual environment at the University of Louisville. This is our first year to run the REU site. While our original plan when we proposed this project was to have a traditional in-person program, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the concerns about safety for both faculty mentors and students involved made us decide to run it virtually. While we had to cancel some in-person activities such as face-to-face meetings, tours, and social events, we also added virtual events such as private and group MS Team meeting, Slack chat rooms (channels), and online movie nights and discussions. Nine out of the ten research projects were conducted entirely virtually. For one project that involves hardware component, we managed to mail a hardware kit to the student so that she could still work on her project remotely. Student evaluations indicate that this virtual REU site program, though in its first year, was quite successful and satisfactory.

Zhang, W. (2022, August), Running a Virtual Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) Site in Computing Systems Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--40374

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