“UIS is not known as a research school; it is a research school if you do your research there.”
My Ph.D. advisor told me this when I was starting at UIS. I love sharing these words because they show that meaningful research can happen anywhere - you just need to make it happen. And UIS has proven to be just that kind of place, with great support for research and I am lucky to work with students who are eager to dive in.
For those who want to do research with me, I encourage you to read this page carefully to understand the requirements before we schedule a meeting.
Short answer: Two semesters. Ten to fifteen hours per week. I will meet with you weekly.
Time is the most valuable resource required in research, after perhaps interest. In general, I expect you to work at least two semesters with me. Please understand that time commitment applies both to you and to me. To “buy” you more time to do research, you are asked to take CSC 499: Tutorial to earn credits as an elective. Some students also do IPL 301 with me.
I wish I can tell you that you can just work with me for a few weeks or a summer and then can have a shinny publication on your CV. But that is not the case. Not for the research I do. Not for the backgrounds my students usually have.
Please find the (incomplete) list of topics on this page.
Generally, there are two types of topics.
Original research. The research I do to publish original/new results. It will usually require more effort from both you and me. And I will make sure I decompose meaningful tasks to get you engaged in the research.
Study topics. I have broad interests in theoretical computer science and mathematics. Every now and then there are topics that I want to learn. These type of topics can provide very good training for you as a undergraduate student or master student. These type of topics are called Senior Theses or Capstone Project in other institution, see for example Jim Fix’s (Reed College) topics. Although we don’t officially have Capstones in UIS, I want to do things along that line.
Once we start working on a project/topic. I expect you document your work at different stages (as code, report, slides, poster, video, paper). I will typically expect you present your work at UIS STAR Symposium. It will be very helpful for your future job/graduate school application, and will be important for me to show off your work, too. You will need to write a formal report using the LaTex template ( Chicago Math REU template) provided below. Read the samples there to get an idea what the report should look like.
Below is a list of useful tools.
Every person who does his/her work should get paid. But currently I don’t have funding to support that belief. (Now I have a grant for the Chemical Reaction Networks related topics and I can pay you.)
It is my job to write you a letter if you do research with me. In some sense, that is the only way I can write a meaningful letter for you. It will be hard for me to write a strong one for you if you exit in the middle. I will actually be reluctant in writing you a letter in this circumstance.
Just tell me you want to leave. It will save both your time and mine this way.
Just send me a letter to schedule regular meetings for the new semester. I will not initiate that conversation. I tried that before and only to learn that the students had already decided to leave. So I will assume if you don’t contact me early in a semester, you’re leaving.
Three. I used to think I can advise every student approaching me. But I’ve learned my lesson.
I need something that I can learn about you, whatever you believe that can help. Here is a Twitter post that makes some useful suggestion in a funny way. A good GPA surely helps but that is not the only thing I will look into.
No. I don’t have any machine learning project currently. But that does not mean I won’t have one in the future.
I would require that you take CSC 499: Tutorial. (Some students can also do IPL 300/301 (Internship) with me. Some even do both CSC 499 and IPL 300/301 with me.) That is a way that you can earn credits while doing research with me. More importantly, it buys you some time. You can take it as an elective and it counts towards graduation. You typically have to have my approval to be able to register the course.
Of Course. Some of my best students are online students. You should definitely try if you are interested in working with me.
No, it is not a good idea to use research opportunities as a temporary transition. You need a considerable amount of time to build up the necessary knowledge before you can contribute to research, and I need to commit my time to help you. I cannot afford to invest my time knowing that you might leave very soon. Although, as a former international student, I understand how important it is for you to have a “job” during your OPT, I don’t feel it is right to help you just because of that. Research opportunities are for research purposes only.
I hope you have taken courses in Calculus I and II, Differential Equations, Discrete Math, and Algorithms. It would be ideal if you are a math student with a computer science minor or the other way around. However, I understand that my students at UIS may not always have the background I look for, but that does not mean we cannot build it along the way. I keep an open mind on this. The more important thing is your ability to learn new things.