Undergraduate Research @ Brown CS
This site was made by the Meta Undergraduate Research Assistants.
Department Research Page
MURA Hours
For Fall 2020, we're holding Office Hours on Wednesdays from 3-4 pm EST on Zoom
here. To accomodate different timezones, Office Hours will also be offered on a by-appointment basis. Please email
mura@cs.brown.edu to schedule a time to chat!
Fall 2020 Research Opportunities
We maintain a dynamic list of currently-available research opportunities within the department. There are openings both for course credit and for pay. If you plan on applying to an opportunity, we ask that you follow the faculty's instructions on the spreadsheet and do some background research on your own first.
If you need help applying or want to chat more about research in general, please email us.
Spreadsheet of Opportunities
FAQ's
- What do the MURA's do?
Here is a list of typical things the MURAs do during the semester:
- Answer questions about research and available research opportunities
- Answer questions about the CS department
- Answer questions about getting summer research opportunities
- Host different workshops and talks related to research
- Send out a monthly newsletter with information about research opportunities, events they are holding, and general updates. If you haven't received a newsletter and want to get it, you can contact us at mura@cs.brown.edu
- Hold weekly office hours at a time that is yet to be determined. When it is, you will definitely see them on CIT slides around the building
- Are there any changes to research policy due to COVID-19?
Due to the current circumstances surrounding COVID-19, most research opportunities are remote for the Fall 2020 semester. However, there aren't any other major changes: research opportunities are still very much available and encouraged!
- When is the right time to start?
It's never too early or too late to get involved in research! Each lab is different, so we encourage you to reach out to professors directly if you're interested in joining their group. If you want more guidance with that, we're here to help.
- What prerequisites do professors expect me to know?
With different professors, projects, and 'roles' come very different expectations!
In our list of active opportunities , there is a column of what a role is expecting, which is more concrete and tailored to the specific research positions recruiting now.
If you are going the route of asking a professor directly, on our old site, we tried to keep up-to-date the general prerequisites needed in order to be able to start research with them. While the list is not extensive and more faculty have come on since then, you can see the highly varying range of expectations for each professor. We would also recommend trying to find their personal website and seeing if they have any more updated prerequisites listed there (and sometimes there are secret words you must include in your email in order to prove you have done so). And, while you might not have experience in a field right now, going to a lab meeting will be the best way to know if your current experience is enough for the current projects and to learn what the expectations will be when applying in the future!
Our motto (that you might know from other sources) is that you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. So, even if you go and find out projects at this time are not be available, there could be some in the future, especially as you grow your skillset, so don't be discouraged!
- How many hours should I expect to work on research during the school year?
Good question! Expectations typically vary across research groups and projects, but 10-15 hours is a generally good estimate.
Professors and Graduate students are also typically understanding of how hectic undergrad class workloads can become, especially around midterm and finals periods, so don't worry about asking for a break from research if and when you need it!
Let it be known that the more work you put into a research project, the more you will get out of it! These positions are ways in which you can really grow and show others what you can achieve. Many professors really encourage students to work with them for at least a year (especially if you want to co-author a paper), but this is professor-dependent as well.
Who We Are
Current MURAs:
Our Calendar
This calendar is the constantly-updating one-stop shop to see what the MURA's are up to. Use it to see when our hours are, double-check event timings, or even just to find out when we're free to chat!
This site is a work in progress.