In 2012, in a session hosted for mathematical modeling in undergraduate education, I presented the final discussion on advising undergraduates through research.

1. Reflections on the Initiation of a
Modeling-Focused Undergraduate
Research Program
Jon M. Ernstberger

2. LaGrange College
● Solution to the Two-Body Problem
● School Description
● Faculty Responsibilities
● History of Undergraduate Research at LC

3. "Me" in "Team"
● Value
● Marketable
● Time
● Integrate into current research?
● Do you miss research?

4. The Professor/Student Relationship
● Agreement on Topic
● Plans for Attack
● Motivation
● Clarity on Expectations
● Familiarity

5. Project One
● Year One
○ Initially began as a directed study to learn MATLAB
and some numerical methods.
○ Turned into a computational graph theory project
● Year Two
○ After a second REU she wanted to study graph
theory.
○ Worked on an Octave graph theory toolbox.
■ Treated each graph as the adjacency matrix.
■ Added direction and weighting.
■ Coded several operations

6. Project Two
● One Year
○ Not-for-credit
○ Originally to bolster programming skills
○ Started a project that was too much!
○ Worked on ``The Heating and Cooling of the
LaGrange College Science Building"
● Conclusion
○ Poster presentation at CAARMS 2011 in Los
Angeles.
○ Won 1st place for undergraduate research

7. Project Three
● Year One
○ Lots of reading
○ Finding previously collected data (NREL, NOAA,
etc.)
○ Linear algebra, minimization, ODE solvers
● Year Two--Model Came Together
● Conclusion
○ Compete for local research award on-campus
○ Plans to publish this work in the journal the model
was published.

8. School/Student Considerations
● Student body investment in a topic may
already be present! (low-hanging fruit)
● Is your research interdisciplinary?
● Can your research benefit your school?
● Can this research help the student get into
graduate school or get a job?

9. Regrets/Worries/Concerns
● Have I exerted too much pressure?
● Am I expecting too much?
● Have I been ineffective/inefficient in this
role?
● Am I missing opportunities for my students?

10. Advice
● Befriend your school's UR coordinator
● Evangelize/Recruit
● Coffee
● CUR
● Network (verb)