Challenges and Accomplishments of the Computational Science Undergraduate Research Experiences Program

The Computational Science for Undergraduate Research Experiences (CSURE) is an NSF funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program organized by the University of Tennessee's Joint Institute for Computational Sciences (JICS), www.jics.utk.edu/csure-reu. The main goal of the CSURE project is to direct a group of undergraduate students to explore the emergent computational science models and techniques using the supercomputers at the National Institute for Computational Sciences (NICS). In addition, a number of summer interns from Hong Kong also participate in the program. The CSURE program focuses on five different scientific domains: chemistry and material sciences, systems biology, engineering mechanics, atmospheric sciences, and parallel solvers on emergent platforms. The program also enjoys a close affiliation with researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Because of these diverse topics of research areas and backgrounds of this project, in this paper we discuss the challenges and resolutions in managing and coordinating the program, delivering cohesive tutorial materials, directing mentorship of individual projects, and lessons learned in the duration of the program.