Program Structure

Students, supervised by a leading mathematician/researcher, form a research group and work with other students on an original research project. Students receive a daily meal allowance and, depending on where they are travelling from, transportation, housing, travel support, and medical coverage.

Faculty/researchers from outside the Greater Toronto Area may apply for reimbursement of travel expenses for their travel to Toronto.

The Organizing Committee reviews and evaluates all applications/project submissions. Potential supervisors are welcome to submit multiple projects to increase their chances of being matched with a student.

Assignment of students to supervisors is determined by various factors, such as student project rankings, the strength of matches, and availability of funds.

Fields will strive to equitably distribute students among eligible projects, but cannot guarantee the number of students or that all eligible projects will proceed to the student-project matching phase. Fields cannot accommodate requests for a specific student or for students from a particular country.

Fields strives to match students with appropriate projects. Supervisors receive their assigned students’ CVs for review after student selections.

If a supervisor’s project is not selected for the year for which it is submitted, with the agreement of the supervisor, it will be kept on file for consideration in subsequent years.

Application Deadline

Supervisor applications open October 1, 2018, and are due November 22, 2018 (extended), for 2019 FUSRP.

Supervisor Application

Project submission form is available here.

All applicants will be contacted in early December with selection decisions.

Thank you for your interest. For more information, please contact Bryan Eelhart.

Supervisor Eligibility

Individuals wishing to supervise students must be faculty from Fields Principal Sponsoring or Affiliate Universities, visiting scientists, or researchers in industry.

Supervisor Expectations

During the Program, the supervisor will:

• Supervise a group with a minimum of two to a maximum of five students for 9 weeks.
• Interact/meet with students at least once a week (preferably more). In the event of an absence, the supervisor may appoint, well ahead of time, another faculty member/researcher, postdoctoral fellow, or graduate student to supervise or to meet with the undergraduates.
• Guide and inspire students to reach their scholarly potential.
• Ensure conditions conducive to student research and intellectual growth.
• Provide guidance to drive the progress of the research.
• Participate in and attend the Program’s Orientation and Welcome and Mini-Conference on July 2 and August 28, 2019, respectively.
• Provide students a weekly research plan with goals, objectives, and milestones.
• Ensure students observe a 35-hour work week.

Students may collaborate for longer periods of time with their supervisor. Fields is not responsible (financially or otherwise) for the student outside of the confirmed 9 weeks.

Project Eligibility

Project submissions should:

(i) Describe a research-based mathematical problem in 400 words (approximately half a page), including:

• • the project rationale and objective,
  • key tasks associated with the project and timeline,
  • existing data or needed data collection efforts,
  • student responsibilities, and
  • expected outcomes by the conclusion of the program

(ii) Run for the full period of July 2 to August 30, 2019 (nine weeks).
(iii) Adhere to Fields Policy on Research Integrity.

During the application, students rank research projects, which allows for a student-project matching process. Undergraduates will likely have limited experience with methodological tools and the research process—learning that process is one key goal of the Program—so project descriptions should be accessible to such an audience.

Outcomes from the first few years of the Program showed that students thrive when research projects have well-defined goals and associated tasks, as well as supervisors that are accustomed to employing the methods required to examine the research question. Students working in such scenarios were much more confident in conducting research at the university-level and are very likely to continue with research throughout their undergraduate career.

Attracting Prospective Students

Fields will post eligible research projects online for student consideration, including:

• First and last name of supervisor, as well as their host institution, department, and professional webpage, if available.
• Title, brief description, and keywords of the research project.

Acknowledgement

It is only with the support of faculty at Principal Sponsoring/Affiliate Universities and mathematicians/researchers that the FUSRP is possible. We thank you very much for your time and support.

Project Selection Committee

The Project Selection Committee for 2019 FUSRP:

Bradd Hart (Chair), McMaster University
Hongmei Zhu, York University
Peter Gibson, York University 
Lei Sun, University of Toronto
Alec Jacobson, University of Toronto
Huaxiong Huang, The FIelds Institute

Questions?

Please contact Bryan Eelhart, at 416-348-9710, Ext. 2018 or

.