MSRI-UP

The MSRI Undergraduate Program (MSRI-UP) is an award-winning comprehensive summer program designed for undergraduate students who have completed two years of university-level mathematics courses and would like to conduct research in the mathematical sciences.

The main objective of MSRI-UP is to identify talented students, including those from underrepresented groups (including women and gender-expansive individuals), who are interested in mathematics and make available to them meaningful research opportunities, the necessary skills and knowledge to participate in successful collaborations, and a community of academic peers and mentors who can advise, encourage and support them through a successful graduate program.

SLMath and the National Science Foundation are strongly committed to expanding the opportunities in the mathematical sciences to people of all racial, ethnic, geographic and socioeconomic backgrounds, sexual orientations, gender identities, and to persons with disabilities.

Please help us to spread the word about this opportunity to your undergraduate contacts by downloading a PDF flyer.

Research Theme

The theme of the 2025 MSRI-UP is “Quantitative Justice" and the research leader is Dr. Omayra Y. Ortega, Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Sonoma State University. The research program will focus on the application of techniques, tools, and topics from various quantitative sciences (e.g., pure mathematics, applied mathematics, data science, computer science) to approach problems from the social sciences to help explore and understand issues of social injustice.  Students will work on a variety of computational problems and each project will incorporate tools from across various disciplines to investigate a different social issue. 

Students must have completed linear algebra and an introductory statistics course before the summer. Students who have taken a programming course in R or are familiar with R will find it useful in this heavily computational work.

General Description

During the summer, each of the 18 student participants will:

• participate in the mathematics research program under the direction of Dr. Omayra Y. Ortega of Sonoma State University, a post-doc and two graduate students;
• complete a research project done in collaboration with other MSRI-UP students;
• give a presentation and write a technical report on their research project;
• attend a series of colloquium talks given by leading researches in their fields;
• attend workshops aimed at developing skills and techniques needed for research careers in the mathematical sciences;
• learn techniques that will maximize a student's likelihood of admissions to graduate programs as well as the likelihood of winning fellowships; and
• receive a $3,600 stipend, lodging, meals and round trip travel to Berkeley, CA.

After the summer, each student will:

• have an opportunity to attend a national mathematics or science conference where students will present their research;
• be part of a network of mentors that will provide continuous advice in the long term as the student makes progress in his/her studies; and
• be contacted regarding future research opportunities.

For additional information, please contact the on-site director for the 2025 MSRI-UP, Dr. Robin Wilson.

Applications for MSRI-UP 2025 will open in November, 2024.
 

MSRI-UP Directors

The directors of MSRI-UP are:

• Dr. Alexander Diaz-Lopez - alexander.diaz-lopez@villanova.edu
• Dr. Mercedes Franco - mfranco@qcc.cuny.edu
• Dr. Rebecca Garcia - rgarcia2023@coloradocollege.edu
• Dr. Candice Price - cprice@smith.edu
• Dr. Robin Wilson - Robin.Wilson@lmu.edu - 2025 on-site director

MSRI-UP Sponsors

Funding to support MSRI-UP is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the National Science Foundation (NSF).