Research in Industrial Projects for Students (RIPS) 2012

Become an Academic Mentor

IPAM seeks academic mentors in mathematics who will have a doctorate in hand by June 30, 2012. Advanced PhDs will be considered in some cases. Serving as an academic mentor provides a unique opportunity to work with gifted college and university students who are at the formative stages of career development. If you enjoy applied research and have previous experience teaching or training undergraduate students, please contact IPAM about academic mentor openings in RIPS 2012.

One academic mentor is assigned to each team. The academic mentor’s role is to oversee the progress of his/her student team’s progress. This involves developing a close working relationship at the start of the program with the student team, understanding the needs of individual students as well as the team as a whole, and knowing when to intervene to help the project move forward and when to let the team experiment with different approaches to a solution. Academic mentors assist students with developing a statement of work for their project, answer questions, and provide direction with background reading, research methodology and analyzing results. They also play a critical role in reviewing and critiquing students’ written work and public presentation skills. One goal of the RIPS Program is to provide college students with their first glimpse of a possible career related to mathematics. Academic mentors often play an important role in shaping impressions about a career path through their own academic and professional experience(s). An academic mentor devotes up to 50% of his/her time to the project, allowing abundant time for personal research or other academic activities.

Please send an email to rips2012@ipam.ucla.edu for more information.