[vtkusers] NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates

[Lisa Avila]

Kitware is pleased to announce two NSF REU (National Science Foundation 
Research Experience for Undergraduates) positions for this summer and/or 
fall. Details about the positions are provided below. If you are 
interested in applying or would like further information, contact Lisa 
Avila at lisa.avila at kitware.com.

Program Description:

Kitware has an on-going research project focused on the visualization of 
AMR (adaptive mesh refinement) data. This is a hierarchical structured 
data format that is often used in simulation methods in order to 
represent detail at both a coarse level across vast distances (for 
example, an entire galaxy) and sparse fine detail as necessary (for 
example, to capture the formation of a new star). This data format is 
used in astronomy, mechanical engineering, climatology, and biology.

The two undergraduate participants will spend some time learning data 
visualization in general, and Kitware's specific AMR visualization 
methods. The undergraduate participants will obtain example AMR data 
from the scientific research community, investigate / visualize the 
data, and write a report describing the data and the result of this 
visual investigation. Depending on student interest / skills, the 
participants may produce images or animations of the data, or may write 
a custom interactive visualization application that will be distributed 
with the report.

The two student participants will work in Kitware's Clifton Park, NY 
offices.

Benefits:

The undergraduate participants will become familiar with the popular 
open source projects VTK (www.vtk.org) and ParaView (www.paraview.org), 
and will receive all Kitware technical publications and training 
materials on these projects. The participants will be able to contribute 
to an on-going research project, communicate with scientists from around 
the world, and gain valuable experience working in a fast-paced small 
business environment.

The participating students will receive a salary of $12 per hour 
(subject to federal, state, and local taxes) for a total of 400 hours. 
If this project is pursued over the summer, this will likely represent 
10 weeks of effort with 40 hours of work per week. The project could 
instead span a longer duration with less hours per week (up to a maximum 
of 20 weeks) if some or all of the work is to be performed during the 
fall semester. Ideally, the two student participants would follow 
approximately the same schedule.

Eligibility:

The participants should have some past programming experience (C#, C++, 
c, Java, Python, Tcl, etc.), and should be enthusiastic about 
participating in the project.

Undergraduate student participants must be citizens or permanent 
residents of the United States or its possessions. An undergraduate 
student is a student who is enrolled in a degree program (part-time or 
full-time) leading to a baccalaureate or associate degree. Students who 
are transferring from one college or university to another and are 
enrolled at neither institution during the intervening summer may 
participate. High school graduates who have been accepted at an 
undergraduate institution but who have not yet started their 
undergraduate study are also eligible to participate. Students who have 
received their bachelor's degrees and are no longer enrolled as 
undergraduates are generally not eligible to participate.