3. Postdoctoral Program - MSRI

projects. Many assignments and projects required that students become familiar and adept at
Sage mathematics software system, and written work was submitted using LaTeX. Students also
had access to computers in their MSRI offices, but most access the network using their laptops,
instead, both on site at the Institute and from the dormitories in the evenings.
7. Research Projects, Technical Reports and MSRI Student Presentations
The focus of MSRI-UP is undergraduate research. After the first two weeks of the program, each
student worked exclusively on an undergraduate research project in the field of coding theory
that was carefully designed by the seminar leader. Initially, there were six groups of three
students, though one group completed the summer as a pair. Students wrote technical reports and
presented the results of their research in the MSRI-UP Student Colloquium the last Friday of the
program.
During the second week of the program, students received descriptions of their possible
research projects. The students did preliminary reading and literature searches on the project
topics, and they were requested to rank their top project choices. However, program staff
composed the research teams, satisfying student preferences as much as possible while paying
attention to interpersonal dynamics that had been observed during the first pre-research seminar.
During the research phase of MSRI-UP, students worked in the offices assigned to them
at MSRI. Each research team was assigned a support person from the academic staff of the
program. Professor Goins oversaw all the work of all six groups, and he also supervised two
teams directly. Postdoctoral fellow Lomelí supervised two research teams, and each graduate
student supervised one team. The undergraduates met with their support person for several hours
each day, and each team met periodically with Professor Goins to update him and receive
guidance.
During the program, MSRI-UP participants were introduced to some of the techniques
that are used while conducting successful research in the mathematical sciences. Indeed,
students learned to work as part of a research team, develop an effective faculty advisor-student
relationship, use computer software as tools, use the Internet as a resource, prepare and deliver
an oral presentation, write a mathematics paper (technical report), and use LaTeX, including the
Beamer package for presentations.
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