Research in Industrial Projects for Students (RIPS) 2008

Overview | Projects | Application | Contact Us

Overview:

The Research in Industrial Projects (RIPS) Program provides an opportunity for high-achieving undergraduate students to work in teams on a real-world research project proposed by a sponsor from industry or a national lab. RIPS recruits its students from all over the world. Each RIPS team is comprised of four students, a faculty mentor, and an industrial sponsor. The research problem is developed by the industrial sponsor in consultation with IPAM; it is always a real problem of serious interest to the sponsor and that offers a stimulating challenge to students. The students, with direction from their faculty mentor and industrial sponsor, spend nine weeks learning about the problem, mastering the latest analytical approaches and techniques to solve it, and developing report-writing and public-speaking skills to be able to make professional presentations about the progress and results of their work to a scientific audience. Industry mentors provide regular contact between the team and the sponsor, monitoring and helping to guide student work. Ultimately, RIPS provides valuable real-world technical and managerial experience for students as well as valuable R&D for sponsors.

RIPS Program Director: Michael Raugh, Ph.D.

For more information, see Comments from RIPS Students and Frequently Asked Questions.

Projects:

Projects are selected to have a major mathematical component and to be something that will pose an interesting challenge to talented undergraduates. Recent projects have included how to do a physics-based animation of a lava lamp, how to stitch together two images, how to analyze cancer data using microarrays, statistical data assimilation methods for weather data, modeling particle transport phenomena in reactors, and designing missions to the moons of Jupiter. This is just a sampling of the types of projects assigned to RIPS teams. New industrial sponsors join the RIPS Program each year and the same projects are never repeated.

RIPS 2007 sponsors were Accelrys, Amgen, Arete, Jet Propulsion Lab, Lawrence-Livermore National Lab, Los Alamos National Lab, Pixar Animation, The Speilberg Family Center for Applied Proteomics, and Symantec. The RIPS-LA 2007 project descriptions are posted here.

http://www.ipam.ucla.edu/programs/rips2007/sponsors.aspx

IPAM is no longer accepting applications for RIPS 2008

Contact Us:

Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM)
Attn: RIPS2008
460 Portola Plaza
Los Angeles CA 90095-7121
Phone: 310 825-4755
Fax: 310 825-4756
Email:
Website: http://www.ipam.ucla.edu/programs/rips2008/

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