Undergraduate Research

The School of Mathematics at Georgia Tech has a rich tradition for undergraduate research. The projects have been mentored by many different faculty, on topics ranging from fad formation, to random walks, tropical geometry, one bit sensing, extremal graph theory, and convex polyhedra. Our students have published many papers, have won a number of awards, and have been very successful in their graduate school applications. For a sample of the past projects please see below. 

During the Summer 2022 the School of Mathematics plans to run the following projects (listed by mentor and tentative topic): 

To complement the research projects, the School of Mathematics will also hold professional development sessions on relevant topics, such as:

  • How to create and present a poster,
  • Writing CV, personal statement, papers using LaTeX,
  • Why go to math graduate school, and what to expect there,
  • Applying to graduate school,
  • Responsible conduct of research.

There will be a poster session at the end of the program.

A typical research project lasts approximately 8 weeks, in June and July, although the exact timing is negotiable and can be worked out between students and their mentors. There will be a summer stipend, and there is affordable housing available on campus. More details can be found at the FAQ page.

Summer 2022 REU recruitment is complete - all positions have been filled. Thank you for considering our REU program.

Apply at MathPrograms.org.  The deadline for applications is February 15th, 2022. Decisions will be announced by March 30th, 2022.

If you have any questions about the program, or about undergraduate research in general, please contact Igor Belegradek.

The School of Mathematics generally does not organize undergraduate research during Spring & Fall semesters. However some faculty mentor students on individual basis. In particular, for research in algebra and topology you may contact Dan Margalit (the prerequisites are familiarity with proofs and some exposure to algebra and/or topology).

 




Research Experiences for Undergraduates at Georgia Tech

Summer 2021 GT REUs

Special Thanks go to Roberta Shapiro in her role as REU 2021 General Helper
Mentor Student Topic
Anton Bernshteyn Tyler Brazelton* (GaTech) Counting Colorings of Triangle-Free Graphs
Ruijia Cao** (GaTech)
Akum Kang* (GaTech)

*Tyler, Ruijia, and Akum's work resulted in this paper, which is currently under review for publication

**Ruijia gave a talk about the result in the GT Graph Theory Seminar
Jianbo Cui, Luca Dieci and Haomin Zhou Sam William Dulin* (U Virginia) Numerical Simulations in Optimal Transport
Scott McIntyre* (UC Berkeley) 

*Sam and Scott's work resulted in this poster
Jorge Gonzales Ivan Antonio Garcia* (Princeton U) Existence of a Periodic Orbit in the Fitzhugh-Nagumo Model
Foyez Alauddin* (Trinity School NYC) 

*Foyez and Ivan's work resulted in this poster
Siddhi Krishna and Marissa Loving Len White* (CalPoly Pomona) Braid Groups and the Braid Index of 1-Bridge Braids
Viridiana Jasmin Neri* (Columbia U) 
Dane Gollero* (U Utah)
Izah Tahir* (GaTech)

*Dane, Viridiana, Izah, and Len's work resulted in these slides for a talk
Rachel Kuske Ricardo Ivan Gonzalez Franco (CIMAT, U Guanajuanto, Mexico) Targeted Energy Transfer with Vibro-Impact Nonlinear Energy Sink
Julia Sanger (Bucknell U) 
Corinne Vicario* (Pomona College)
Ruofeng 'Charlie' Liu* (Rice U)

*Charlie and Corinne's work resulted in this poster
Wenjing Liao Joshua Gammage* (U Texas at Dallas) The Double Descent Phenomenon in Machine Learning
Jincheol 'Mike' Jeong* (New Jersey Institute of Technology) 

*Josh and Mike's work resulted in this poster
Doron Lubinsky Sarah Gold* (Haverford College) Erdős-Szekeres Polynomials and Their L2 Norms
Ephraim Linder* (Rutgers U) 
Cooper Billsborough* (GaTech)
Jiahui 'Rose' Yu* (Pomona College)

*Cooper, Sarah, Ephraim, and Jiahui's work resulted in this poster, and their work will appear in
the paper On Average Growth of Erdős-Szekerez Polynomials in Acta Math. Hungarica. 
Cheng Mao Sean Stuhlsatz* (U Virginia) Ranking from Pairwise Comparisons
Alexander Mangiapane* (UNC at Chapel Hill) 

*Alex and Sean's work resulted in this poster
Dan Margalit and Wade Bloomquist Elyssa Cirillo* (Christopher Newport U) Counting Filling Pairs on Surfaces
Jiamin Li* (Agnes Scott) 
Alice Ponte* (GaTech) 

*Elyssa, Jiamin, and Alice's work resulted in this poster
Dan Margalit and Yvon Verberne Adele Long* (Smith College) Automorphisms of the Fine Curve Graph
Thi Phuong Anh 'Anna' Pham* (U Texas at Dallas) 
Wenxi Claudia Yao* (U Chicago)

*Adele, Anna, and Claudia's work resulted in this poster, and 
a paper which will appear in the Transactions of the American Mathematical Society
Dan Margalit and Nancy Scherich Julia Shneidman* (Rutgers U) Curves in Non-Orientable Surfaces
Sarah Ruth Nicholls* (Wake Forest U) 

*Sarah and Julia's work resulted in this poster, and their work won the
2021 MAA Outstanding Student Paper Session Presentation Award at Mathfest
Dan Margalit Caleb Partin* (GaTech) Inductive Methods for Twisted Rabbit Problems
Lily Li* (UC Berkeley) 

*Caleb and Lily will give a talk on their results at the Tech Topology Conference
Mayya Zhilova Meredith Clayton* (Stephen Austin State U) Bootstrapping on Heavy Tail Data
Rachel Thornton* (U Texas at Austin) 

*Meredith and Rachel's work resulted in this poster
 

Summer 2020 GT REUs
Wade Bloomquist and Roberta Shapiro Jose Luis Guzman (UT Austin)   Images of Untwisted Dijkgraaf-Witten Representations
Andrea Barton (Brigham Young U)
Hannah Moon (U Michigan)
*Jose, Andrea, and Hannah's work resulted in this poster
Federico Bonetto Charles Haynes* (GaTech) The Lyapunov Spectrum of Coupled Arnold Cat Maps.

*Charles' work resulted in this presentation
Rachel Kuske and Larissa Serdukova Sam Dulin* (University of Virginia) Dynamics and Noise in Energy Harvesting
Kailee Lin* (Harvey Mudd College)
Yihua Xu** (GaTech) Dynamics and Noise in Optimization Algorithms
Ariba Khan** (Agnes Scott C)

*Sam and Kailee's work resulted in this presentation
**Yihua and Ariba's work resulted in this presentation, and the research has made to several conferences including
Mathematics Continued Conferences, UMS Poster Session, and the
Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Women in Mathematics Poster session
Miriam Kuzbary and Roberta Shapiro Madison Ford* (Wayne State U) Pure Braids and Link Concordance
Sarah Pritchard* (GaTech) 
Erin Wilkerson* (Clark Atlanta)  
Ben Pagano* (Occidental C)

*Madison, Sarah, Erin, and Ben's work resulted in this poster, and this paper
Doron Lubinsky Ana Sammel* (Humboldt State U) Generalizations of Orthogonal Polynomials
Erdos-Szekeres Type Problems
Cooper Billsborough* (GaTech)
Samuel Hart* (GaTech)
Michael Freedman* (U Florida)
Ari Pomeranz* (U Marlyand)
Gidon Kowalsky* (GaTech)

*Ana, Cooper, Samuel, Michael, Ari, and Gidon's work resulted in this poster, and 
a paper which will appear in Proceedings of the AMS
Cheng Mao Zachary Sekaran* (UPenn) Statistical Ranking
Haoran Zhang* (GaTech)

*Zachary and Haoran's work resulted in this presentation
Henry Matzinger Hannah Phillips* (GaTech) Statistical Study of Covid-19 Epidemy
*Hannah's work resulted in this presentation
Jung Park Daniel Guyer (U Wisconsin-Eau Claire)  Knot Concordance
Thomas Sachen (Princeton U)
*Daniel and Thomas' work resulted in this paper
Lutz Warnke Suchakree "Petch" Chueluecha* (Lehigh U) Random Graphs/Networks
Tolson Bell** (GaTech)

*Suchakree and Tolson's work resulted in a 20-min talk at the Young Mathematicians Conference (YMC) on August 14th, and
the presentation of this poster at the Undergraduate Mathematics Symposium (UMS) on November 7th,
as well as this paper which has already recieved a citation 
**Tolson also gave a 55-min talk in the Georgia Tech ACO Student Seminar on October 23rd
 

Summer 2019 GT REUs
Mentor Student Topic
Prasad Tetali Daniel Hathcock* (GaTech)  

*Daniel's work resulted in a paper Acyclic Orientations of Complete Multipartite Graphs, coauthored by Arvind Ayyer and Prasad Tetali
and resulted in this paper and this poster which has been/will be presented at the 
Young Mathematicians Conference 2019, Ohio State University, and the
Joint Mathematics Meeting 2020, Denver, CO
Doron Lubinsky Gidon Kowalsky* (GaTech)  

*Gidon's work resulted in this paper
Yoav Len Steven Creech* (GaTech)  
Caelan Ritter* (Brown)
Derek Wu* (GaTech)

*Steven, Caelan, and Derek's work resulted in this paper that appeared here
and they gave a poster and slide presentation at the 
Young Mathematicians Conference 2019, Ohio State University
Dan Margalit with Wade Bloomquist (GaTech) Jessica Appel* (Kentucky) Congruence Subgroups
Katie Gravel* (MIT)
Annie Holden* (Colby)

*Jessica, Katie, and Annie's work resulted in this poster and this paper
and has been/will be presented at the
Undergraduate Geometry and Topology Summer Workshop 2019 (Katie and Annie), Notre Dame, 

Young Mathematicians Conference 2019 (Jessica and Katie), Ohio State University, and
Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Women 2020 (Jessica, Katie, and Annie), U Nebraska

Outstanding Poster, Joint Mathematical Meetings, Denver, Feb 2020
Dan Margalit with Kevin Kordek (GaTech)  Alice Chudnovsky* (illinois) Totally Symmetric Sets
Lily Li* (Berkeley)
Caleb Partin* (GaTech)

*Alice, Lily, and Caleb's work resulted in this paper, and
their work will be presented at the 
Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Women 2020 (Lily), U Nebraska

Honorable Mention, Joint Mathematical Meetings Poster Session, Denver, Feb 2020
Dan Margalit with Hyunshik Shin (UGA) Sidhanth Raman* (GaTech) Stretch Factors
Nia Walton* (Spelman)
Ruoyi Wang* (Agnes Scott)

*Sidhanth, Ruoyi, and Nia's work resulted in this poster, and
their work was presented at the 
Young Mathematicians Conference 2019 (Sidhanth and Ruoyi), Ohio State University
Rachel Kuske Janice Lee (Pomona)  
Rachel Walker* (Central Washington U)
Emily Zhang* (MIT)
Trevor Ridley** (Pomona)
Charanpreet Singh (Adelphi U)
Mil'Yonta Wiliams** (U of Alabama, Huntsville)

*Rachel and Emily's work resulted in this paper, and they presented their work at
the Young Mathematicians Conference 2019, and
the MIT IEEE Undergrad Research Conference
**Trevor and Mil'Yonta's work resulted in this poster

*Sidhanth, Ruoyi, and Nia's work resulted in this poster, and
their work was presented at the 
Young Mathematicians Conference 2019 (Sidhanth and Ruoyi), Ohio State University
Michael Lacey and Wenjing Liao Julia Balukonis* (Providence College)  
Sabrina Fuller* (Virginia's Community Colleges)
Haley Rosso* (University of Houston)
Hrishikesh Bodas** (Carnegie Mellon U)
Annika Cleveland** (New Mexico Sate U)
Maato McKinney** (Spelman)

*Julia, Sabrina, and Haley's work resulted in this poster.

**Hrishikesh, Annika, and Maato's work resulted in this poster.
Mohammed Ghomi Joshua Tso (Tufts)  
Robin Thomas Pedro Sacramento de Oliveira (U Penn)  
 

Summer 2018 GT REUs
Mentor Student Topic
Wenjing Liao Andrew Suh (GaTech) Nonlinear Dimension Reduction Techniques
Chris Kwan* (GaTech) Laplacian Eigenmaps and Diffusion Maps

*Chris presented at the MathFest in Denver
Mohammad Ghomi Alex Avery (GaTech) Shadow Problem for Polyhedral Surfaces
Molei Tao Gabriell Hall (Spelman College) Numerical Optimal Control: an Interplay of Calculus of Variation, Modern Optimization, Numerical PDE, and Applications
Huy-Hoang Nguyen (Minerva Schools at KGI)
John Etnyre with Sudipta Kolay Andrew Sack (University of Florida) Braid Coloring of Knots
Brandon Cosgrove (UNC - Chapel Hill)
Caitlin Leverson Hunter Vallejos* (GaTech) Legendarian Knots
DeVon Ingram* (GaTech)

*Hunter and DeVon presented this poster
Dan Margalit with Justin Lanier Xian Li* (San Francisco) All Rabbit Subgroups of the Mapping Class Group
Abby Saladin** (Michigan State)
Santana Afton* (GaTech)

*Xian, Abby and Santana presented this poster
**Abby presented a poster at the Young Mathematicians Conference at Ohio State U
Dan Margalit with Rebecca Winarski Janet Huffman* (Indiana Wesleyan University) Twisted Rabbit Problems and the Curve Complex
Ruotong Zhai** (Agnes Scott College)
Sarah Davis (GaTech)

*Janet and Ruotong presented this poster
**Ruotong will present at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research at Kennesaw State U
Dan Margalit with Balazs Strenner Logan White* (University of Chicago) Transition Matrices for Topological Polynomials
Jacob Shulkin* (University of Michigan)
Agniva Roy* (GaTech)

*Logan, Jacob and Agniva presented this poster
Galyna Livshyts and Michael Lacey Johannes Hosle* (UCLA) On the Comparison of Measures of Convex Bodies via Projections and Sections

*Johannes work resulted in this paper
 

Spring 2018 GT REUs
Mentor Student Topic
Dan Margalit Yihan Zhou (GaTech) Algorithms for Mapping Class Groups
Sung Ha Kang Hyunsu Park (GaTech) Curvature Constraint Path Optimization
Wenjing Lia Chris Kwan  
 

Fall 2017 GT REUs
Mentor Student Topic
Dan Margalit, Balazs Strenner Shreyas Casturi (GaTech) Simplifying Curves on Surfaces
Jonathan Chen (GaTech)
Vignesh Raman (GaTech)
Kyle Xiao (GaTech)
 

Summer 2017 GT REUs
Mentor Student Topic
Doron Lubinsky Andrea Martinez* (GaTech) Orthogonal Polynomials
*The work resulted in this poster
Robin Thomas Rose McCarty* (GaTech) Colin de Verdiere Invariant of Graphs, and the Extremal Function for Bipartite Linklessly Embeddable graphs
*The work resulted in these two papers #1, #2, the research helped Rose secure admission
to the graduate program in the Combinatorics and Optimization Department at the University of Waterloo,
a top program in the field
Josephine Yu Catherine Chen (GaTech) Matroid Theory and Tropical Geometry**
Nhu Do (Mt Holyoke)
Devraj Duggal (GaTech)
James Anderson* Pseudo-Equivalence Classes of Line Arrangements
*James Anderson's work resulted in this poster
**The work of Chen, Do, and Duggal resulted in this poster
Mohammad Ghomi Nicholas Barvinok* (U Michigan) Unfoldings of Convex Polyhedra
*The work resulted in this paper
Sung Ha Kang Jun Xiang (GaTech) Video and Image Restoration with Atmospheric Turbulence Distortion
Sayem Hoque (GaTech)
Caitlin Leverson Hunter Vallejos* (GaTech) Augmentations of Legendrian Knots and Links
*The work resulted in this poster
Christian Houdre Ken Adams (GaTech) A Computational Study of the Longest Common Subsequences in Random Words
Dan Margalit Libby Taylor (GaTech) The Second Johnson Homomorphism
Matt Baker Regular and Oriented Matroids*
*Libby presented her work at Dalton State College in Fall 2017 
and the JMM in San Diego; her work also resulted in a paper (in preparation)
Jen Hom, Sudipta Kolay Shiyu Liang (Jilin University) Non-left-orderable Surgeries on 1-bridge Braids*
*Shiyu's work resulted in this paper
 

Summer 2017 GT REU: Mapping Class Groups 

Supervisor: Professor Dan Margalit
Mentors Student Topic
Becca Winarski Sarah Davis** (GaTech) Symmetric Mapping Class Groups and the Symplectic Group*
Laura Stordy (Agnes Scott)
Queena Zhou*** (GaTech)
*The work resulted in this poster which was presented at JMM 2018 Undergraduate Poster Session
**Sara Davis presented the work at Tech Topology Conference, Georgia Tech, Dec 2017
***Queena Zhou was awarded the Spring 2018 Travel President's Undergraduate Research Award
Justin Lanier Santana Afton (William & Mary) Big Mapping Class Groups*
Sam Freedman (Michigan)
Liping Yin (Ga State)
*The work resulted in this poster which was presented by Santana and Sam at MathFest 2017,
for which they received an Outstanding Presentation Award
Balazs Strenner Ian Katz (Gatech) Nielsen-Thurston Classification Algorithms*
Yandi Wu (Berkeley)
Yihan Zhou (GaTech)
*The work resulted in this poster which was presented by Yandi at MathFest 2017 and YMC 2017,
and received the Outstanding Presentation Award at MathFest 2017, and also resulted in this paper
 

Summer 2017 GT IMPACT REU 

Supervisor: Professor Michael Lacey
Mentors Student Topic
Robert Kesler, Scott Spencer Bryson Kagy (GT) One Bit Sensing: Phase Transitions for the RIP Property*
Amadou Buh (Perimeter College at Georgia State University)
Emily Smith (Agnes Scott College)
*The work resulted in this poster and the work was presented at the JMM in San Diego
Andre Souza, Michael Northington Alison Madson (GT) Chaos in Lorentz