Expanding Undergraduate Research Experiences in Computing

The "Expanding Undergraduate Research Experiences in Computing" project is a pilot initiative led by the Computing Research Association (CRA) to expand Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) opportunities for domestic students. The program addresses the need for efficient recruitment, selection, and reporting of REU activities by supporting students to work on research projects currently funded by selected NSF CISE programs. The project is structured around three primary goals: (1) expanding impactful research opportunities for domestic undergraduate students in areas aligned with NSF priorities; (2) providing optional evidence-based mentoring and student-mentor matching to enhance quality of the research experience; and (3) establishing a coordinated evaluation framework to generate data-driven insights into student development and persistence in computing research pathways. The project ensures the quality of the undergraduate research experiences by leveraging current, peer-reviewed NSF CISE awards. By centralizing stipend distribution and offering optional training modules, the program reduces administrative burden for principal investigators (PIs) while maximizing the educational impact for participants. By providing immersion in high-level research and faculty mentorship, the program increases student awareness of innovation pathways and prepares them for admission to graduate school. The initiative aims to increase the number of domestic students pursuing advanced degrees in computing. Furthermore, by offering optional mentoring training for both undergraduate researchers and graduate student mentors, the project increases the institutional capacity of departments to host undergraduate researchers without increasing local training workload. CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) will utilize its national data collection capacity to perform a comparative analysis between program participants and a control group of peers in other REU programs, including NSF REU sites. This research will explore measurable increases in research self-efficacy, scientific identity, professional skill acquisition, and the influence of mentoring on students' long-term interest in graduate studies. The resulting longitudinal data will contribute valuable insights to the broader computing community regarding effective intervention strategies for developing the next generation of researchers. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. NSF Award ID: 2621730 | Program: 01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT | Principal Investigator: Tracy Camp | Institution: Computing Research Association, WASHINGTON, DC | Award Amount: $5,000,000 View on NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2621730 View on Research.gov: https://www.research.gov/awardapi-service/v1/awards/2621730.html