1. What is Research? My University & Personal Perspective Nancy Amato, Texas A&M University amato@tamu.edu

2. Nancy Amato… a bit about me Now: Professor at Texas A&M University – Best Job in the World: I get to work with students and interesting colleagues from all over the world (and travel all over the world) on exciting problems How did I get here….. Actually it was an accident…. – My first job required me to get a Masters…. – I did not do any ugrad research, in fact didn’t know what it was (you are way ahead of me already!)

3. Undergrads in my Research Group Undergraduates are full, valued members – 3-4 in academic year, 8-10 in summer Work in teams – ugrads, grads, postdoc, me and other professors – Initially work closely with grad mentor – Over time, may even mentor other ugrads Where do I find students? – Class, they contact me (email, office hours),

4. My Research Area(s) Changes and Expands Continually Masters/PhD: Theoretical Computer Science – MS thesis: Reversing Trains (yes, really!) – PhD thesis: parallel algorithms for computational geometry problems (convex hulls, shortest paths) Theory Research – Puzzles, Math, Elegant – Great Highs: New algorithm, proof works!!!! – Frustrations: algorithm breaks…. proof is not right!

5. Samples of my Current Research… High Performance Computing – Applications & systems software Parallel algorithms, libraries, scientific appications – work with researchers in other areas (geosciences, physics, etc.) and other places (National Labs, industry research) – Get to use cool new machines before anyone else! – Have to use cool new machines without tools 

6. Samples of my Current Research… Computational Biology – Design algorithms to model how proteins fold help understand diseases like Alzheimers, Mad Cow – work with researchers life sciences Learn from them and teach them – Revolutionize the way research is done E.g., Sequencing the human genome – At first, hard to talk to biologists, biochemists,..

7. Why You Should Do Research 1.Course Credit – use as technical elective 2.$$ - yes, you can be paid to do research! 3.See if you like it – grad school 4.Resume adornment 5.Get to know professor well (letters…..) 6.Make new friends 7.You can have an office! 8.Travel to exotic places 9.But most importantly….. It is FUN & EXCITING