University of Minnesota
School of Mathematics
School of Mathematics         Part of a three-valent tree made fractal-ish.  
    math.umn.edu / ugrad_research

Undergraduate Research in Mathematics

The School of Mathematics offers a variety of ways for undergraduate math majors and students to be involved in research in mathematics. Faculty sponsors for research projects are listed at the end of the page.

Research areas covered by faculty sponsors span the full range of mathematics — from number theory to algebra to combinatorics to geometry to differential equations to image processing to mathematical biology to climate modeling and everything in between.

Interested students are encourgaed to contact one or more of the faculty sponsors listed at the bottom of the page, and so find a good fit for their interests and expertise. Some of the sponsored projects require formal applications, so pay attention to deadlines and requirements.

For undergraduate research opportunities and internships in mathematics outside the University of Minnesota, see the Undergraduate Internship website.

Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU)

Several faculty members of the School of Mathematics, University of Minnesota, will sponsor REU programs for students majoring in mathematics. The REU program offers financial support to the participating students, either over the summer or during the school year. REU projects are funded by existing grants, typically from the National Science Foundation.

Summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU)

Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP)

UROP projects are funded by the University of Minnesota, and involve pursuing mathematics research under the guidance of one or more faculty members. Possible projects range all over mathematics. You and your faculty mentor will need to apply for support of your project.

Undergraduate Research Scholarship (URS)

Undergraduate Research Scholarships are designed for freshman and sophomore students to work on a faculty sponsored research project.

  • Detailed description of the University of Minnesota URS program

Honors Thesis

Mathematics honors students are required to write an honors thesis with a faculty mentor. The subject of the thesis, including any research, is worked out between the student and the sponsoring faculty.

Senior Projects

CLA math majors must complete a senior project. Projects can involve some research, or learning and writing about an existing area of mathematics.

Undergraduate Math Club

The Undergraduate Math Club does not sponsor undergraduate research. However, it is a great way to meet other undergraduate math majors, find out about their research experiences, and hear talks by leading mathematicians, both from the department and internationally renowned visitors. A great way to find out more about research opportunities in mathematics.

Faculty Mentors

Click on the faculty's name to access their home page and futher details about their areas of research.
Name Research Area REU UROP URS Honors Thesis Senior Project
Sergey Bobkov Probability Theory, Analysis, Convex Geometry, Sobolev-type inequalities. • • • • •
Carme Calderer Applied mathematics, continuum mechanics, soft condensed matter physics and materials science, with emphasis on liquid crystals, ferroic materials, partial differential equations and calculus of variations. • • • • •
Dennis Hejhal Analysis, number theory, supercomputers.   • • • •
Dihua Jiang Automorphic forms, L-functions, number theory, harmonic analysis, representation theory.   • • • •
Gilad Lerman Computational harmonic analysis, analysis of large data sets and statistical learning, bio-informatics. • • • • •
Richard McGehee Dynamical systems, applied math.   • • • •
William Messing P-adic representations associated with algebraic varieties via cohomology, the connections between the latter and De Rham cohomology.   • • • •
Willard Miller Lie groups, special functions, q-series, academic administration.   •   •
Duane Nykamp Applied math, mathematical biology, mathematical neuroscience. • • • • •
Andrew Odlyzko Number theory, combinatorics, statistics and economics.   • • • •
Peter Olver Lie groups, differential equations, computer vision, applied mathematics, differential geometry, mathematical physics. • • • • •
Hans Othmer Applied mathematics, mathematical biology, dynamical systems. • • • • •
Vic Reiner Combinatorics. • • • • •
Mikhail Safonov Analysis, partial differential equations, probability theory.   • • • •
Arnd Scheel Dynamical systems, partial differential equations, applied math. • • • • •
Alexander Voronov Mathematical physics, algebraic topology, algebra, algebraic geometry. • • • • •
Peter Webb Representation theory of groups and algebras, algebraic topology, combinatorics, category theory.   • • • •