Undergraduate Research Engagement Working Group (URE WG)

Our goal is to increase SCS undergraduate research participation, improve the undergrad research experience, improve support and resources for graduate student and faculty research mentoring, and encourage disadvantaged and underrepresented individuals to get involved with research for a diverse research community! See here for more details about our goals and initiatives.

Working Group Details

The URE WG has an “initiative-centered” structure that will be actionable-centered and conducive to getting things done. An initiative can be:

An organized event, such as the SCS Research Mixers
A goal, such as working with admin to acquire funding for summer research for underrepresented minorities Individual WG members will lead initiatives they feel passionate about, the other members of the WG will support them! During WG meetings, we brainstorm and plan initiatives.

Meeting time: As of Spring 2023, we meet every other Thursday at 5-6pm ET in EDSH Smith Hall 200 (back right side of the building, if you are looking towards Forbes Ave.), with our first meeting 01/31/23. The bi-weekly meeting time usually changes from semester to semester based on working group member availability. If you are interested in improving the research experience for CMU ugrads, please join a meeting or email dpac-ugrad-re [at] andrew.cmu.edu :)

Ongoing Initiatives

Research Mixers to connect undergrads and masters students with research projects and grad / faculty mentors
[Research “Speed-dating”] to connect undergrads research veterans (e.g. senior thesis students) with undergrads new to research. First event held Spring 2023.
Research Panels to answer undergrads’ questions about research and academic life, and to encourage them to try it out.
Graduate Student Mentorship Workshop to equip grad student mentors, particularly Robotics Institute Summer Scholars (RISS) mentors, with the skills necessary to advise younger students on research projects

Each semester we host at least 1 research mixer oriented towards matching students looking for a research project with a project, and 1 event oriented towards informing students new to research about research life in general. We will post upcoming events to the mailing listis scs-ugrads [at] lists.andrew.cmu.edu, scs-ms-students [at] cs.cmu.edu, scs-phd-students [at] cs.cmu.edu, and scs-faculty [at] cs.cmu.edu.

See below for pictures from our recent events!

Current Members!

Yi Fei Cheng

Zhiqiu Lin

Katelyn Morrison

Joon Jang

Gautam Gare

Pragna Mannam

Jane Hsieh

Gokul Swamy

Shahul Alam

Erica Weng

Past Members!

Paul Liang

Rishi Veerapaneni

Leonid Keselman

Simin Liu

Past Events, in reverse-chronological order!

2022-02-02 SCS Research Mixer, Spring 2023 Projects

We’re back to the in-person mixer - with free pizza, round-table research discussions, multi-ped robot demonstrations, and many potential research collaborations betweer SCS ugrads / masters students, and grads / faculty!

2022-01-24 SCS Research “Speed-Dating”

During our working group discussions in Fall 2022, we decided upon a new event format: “speed-dating.” This event saw ugrad research “veterans” who have previously done research projects before, either independently - through research classes, or through the SCS honors thesis program - potentially convince their fellow ugrads to get involved with SCS research!