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The National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Explore Emerging Computing in Science and Engineering (EXERCISE) program is an interdisciplinary project that explores emerging paradigms in parallel computing with data and compute-intensive applications in science and engineering. REU EXERCISE has been hosted at SU since 2012 and supported over 100 undergraduate students from all over the country to do undergraduate research at SU.

Students will apply emerging parallel computing models including graphics processing unit (GPU) computing with NVIDIA CUDA, a local parallel processing system, and MapReduce computing on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), a distributed parallel processing system. This will allow them to tackle data and compute intensive problems such as network anomaly detection and medical image reconstruction.

The 10-week summer undergraduate research program includes a $6,000 stipend and $600 travel allowance, an on-campus housing and meal allowance, field trips, social activities and research opportunities in emerging computing with applications in science and engineering.

Students are eligible for the program if they: are a U.S. citizen or permanent resident; a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) major completing at least sophomore year of study; have a GPA of 3.0 or above; and have programming knowledge in C, C++, Java or MATLAB.

For application and more information about program, please visit or email Dr. Enyue (Annie) Lu, the project PI.

Undergraduate Research with Our Faculty

Computer science education involves both the theoretical and hands-on aspects. Introducing fundamental concepts about computer science and providing associated hand-on activities are equally important to achieve effective learning. In our program we provide many opportunities for our students to foster critical-thinking, facilitate the acquisition of life-long learning skills and improve communication skills through working on research projects and capstone class projects. Those skills are particularly crucial for our graduates to function effectively in this fast-changing field. Here are some highlights:

• Student may receive college credit for their research with a professor. Registration for the research project (COSC 390) must be approved prior to starting work on that project.
• Students engaged in faculty-mentored research may be funded grants from ºÚÁÏÍø, the Henson School and individual faculty members. More information can be found be visiting Office of Undergraduate Research & Creative Activity (OURCA), STEM summer research opportunities or contacting individual professors.

Dr. Giulia Franchi is the director of the REAL Robotics Lab and the advisor of the GULLs Robotics Club. She has been collaborating with different farm companies to build a Task-based Autonomous Vehicle for Small Farms. Her expertise in Agriculture Robotics is well known worldwide. She is working with the WaiRAS group from Waikato University in New Zealand developing smart machines, robots, and visual sensors to perform autonomous fruit picking. Her research on using nano 3D-printing technology to build Reef Balls with seed matrices for calcium carbonate precipitation has been funded by the Baileys Foundation in the past five years. In the Robotics lab there are several ongoing projects: detecting litter and marine debris in coastal areas, assessing channel shape evolution in salt marshes using Phantom 3 and 4 drones, and building 3D printed grippers for the drones to pick up objects. For more information, please visit the webpage.

Dr. Yaping Jing and her former undergraduate research student Omar Aboul-Enein, now at National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST), coauthored a paper “Formalizing Performance Evaluation of Mobile Manipulator Robots Using CTML". This paper won the outstanding Research Paper Runner-Up Award (among 190 submissions) in Proceedings of the ASME 2020 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE 2020). Volume 2B: Advanced Manufacturing. The project started as a case study as well as for Omar's undergraduate honors’ thesis based on Dr. Jing’s previous published work on CTML. When Dr. Jing listened to Omar's summer internship experience at NIST, she realized that it would be a perfect opportunity for an undergraduate research project for Omar.

Dr. Enyue (Annie) Lu has been awarded three NSF “REU SITE: EXERCISE - Explore Emerging Computing in Science and Engineering” grants for over 1.5 million dollars and has been leading a team of interdisciplinary faculty mentors to work with over 100 REU students. The students supervised by Dr. Lu were accepted to top computer science graduate programs and have presented at top computing conferences. Recently, funded by the USDA, Dr. Lu is collaborating with the research teams from UMCP and UMES and supporting undergraduate research on the project “Transforming Shellfish Farming with Smart Technology and Management Practices for Sustainable Production”.

Dr. Junyi Tu's research includes topological data analysis and numerical simulation of biological neuron models. Interested students are encouraged to join him to explore one of the following research topics: 1) Topological data analysis of time series, (i.e. dynamical systems and stock markets) 2) Visualization and simulation of the FitzHugh-Nagumo model and the Hindmarsh-Rose model.

Dr. Shuangquan (Peter) Wang's research interests include mobile & wearable computing, activity recognition, and smart health. He is looking for self-motivated students to work with him on the following two topics: 1) Gait disturbance measurement for preventing older adult falls, which combines motion sensors and EMG to model the gait disturbance and prevent falls; 2) Cognitive impairment assessment, which utilizes the motion sensor-embedded wristbands to sense users’ hand motions and provide long-term cognitive impairment assessment.

Dr. Xiaohong (Sophie) Wang in 2024, is a co-PI for a three-year NSF’s “Enabling Partnerships to Increase Innovation Capacity” (EPIIC) grant for a project titled: ”EPIIC: Rural AI Solutions and Engagement (RAISE)”, $380,000. The project’s primary goal is to increase SU’s partnerships with local businesses, agencies and non-profits by using AI solutions to help partners solve problems. In this project, SU is part of a larger cohort of universities that include Valdosta State University and the University of Alaska – Anchorage. Dr. Wang, in 2024, also received, as a senior investigator, a 1-year NSF Convergence Accelerator Track K Phase I grant with a project titled: Prototyping decision support and monitoring tools for equitable management of salt contamination of water supplies in tidal rivers. From 2024-2026, she has been working, as a co-PI, on a grant from Maryland Department of Emergency Management Grant on a project titled “ FEMA 2021 Build Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) Grant Program Make Cambridge Resilient Flood Mitigation”. In the past, she was funded by Maryland Sea Grant and NOAA to work on integration of coastal inundation predictions with GIS Google Earth for Maryland. She was also supported by a grant from Maryland Center for Computing Education to develop a CS education methods course and CS education research.