Reflections on the Initiation of a Modeling-Focused Undergraduate

Research Program

Jon M. Ernstberger

LaGrange College

● Solution to the Two-Body Problem

● School Description

● Faculty Responsibilities

● History of Undergraduate Research at LC

"Me" in "Team"

● Value

● Marketable ● Time

● Integrate into current research?

● Do you miss research?

The Professor/Student Relationship

● Agreement on Topic

● Plans for Attack

● Motivation

● Clarity on Expectations

● Familiarity

Project One● Year One

○ Initially began as a directed study to learn MATLAB and some numerical methods.

○ Turned into a computational graph theory project

● Year Two○ After a second REU she wanted to study graph

theory.○ Worked on an Octave graph theory toolbox.

■ Treated each graph as the adjacency matrix.■ Added direction and weighting.■ Coded several operations

Project Two

● One Year○ Not-for-credit○ Originally to bolster programming skills○ Started a project that was too much!○ Worked on ``The Heating and Cooling of the

LaGrange College Science Building"

● Conclusion○ Poster presentation at CAARMS 2011 in Los

Angeles.○ Won 1st place for undergraduate research

Project Three● Year One

○ Lots of reading○ Finding previously collected data (NREL, NOAA,

etc.)○ Linear algebra, minimization, ODE solvers

● Year Two--Model Came Together

● Conclusion○ Compete for local research award on-campus○ Plans to publish this work in the journal the model

was published.

School/Student Considerations● Student body investment in a topic may

already be present! (low-hanging fruit)

● Is your research interdisciplinary?

● Can your research benefit your school?

● Can this research help the student get into graduate school or get a job?

Regrets/Worries/Concerns

● Have I exerted too much pressure?

● Am I expecting too much?

● Have I been ineffective/inefficient in this role?

● Am I missing opportunities for my students?

Advice● Befriend your school's UR coordinator

● Evangelize/Recruit

● Coffee

● CUR

● Network (verb)