NYIT Receives Third Consecutive NSF Grant for Undergraduate Summer Research

New York Institute of Technology’s Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) program has been awarded a prestigious three-year National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for the third consecutive time. The grant covers funding for NYIT’s summer 2019, 2020, and 2021 REU programs at the New York City campus.

Led by N. Sertac Artan, Ph.D., assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering and Computing Sciences, NYIT is one of the few REU sites in the NSF Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate that focus on mobile device and wireless network security. With the objective of providing technology-infused research opportunities to undergraduate students from NYIT as well as institutions lacking research opportunities, NYIT's REU program comprises a large percentage of undergraduate liberal arts, female, and minority students.

“NYIT understands that significant learning occurs outside the classroom,” Artan notes. “This is the driving force behind our immersive faculty-mentored program that helps students gain industry knowledge and research skills and take advantage of global, technology-oriented opportunities.”

The REU provides an opportunity to collaborate with faculty, graduate students, and peers on research in topical areas of paramount societal importance and build participants’ confidence and skills as independent researchers. In the past six years of NYIT’s program, REU fellows co-authored eight papers published in academic journals and international conferences as a result of research during the program. Details of this and other research conducted in 2013-2018 are available at NYIT’s REU Archives.

Students accepted into this year’s highly competitive program will spend 10 weeks in the heart of New York City conducting research on topics related to the security of mobile devices and wireless networks. Students will be assigned to a project and a mentor based on their research interests and work toward creating a final poster presentation. The research projects require a full-time commitment from participants (5 days a week/40 hours per week), and students may not work while in the program. The deadline to apply for 2019 is February 28, 2019.