Summer Research Opportunities

Students and Instructor Working at the Blackboard

Credit: Caltech Strategic Communications

Math students often work with our faculty members and post-docs to complete Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURFs). To learn more about the research currently being conducted in math and to identify a potential supervisor you can:

Attend Math 20 - Frontiers in Mathematics lectures.
Visit faculty webpages and read their recent publications.
Attend math department seminars. You may find some a bit too advanced for your current understanding, but don't get discouraged. Seminars can help you discover a research topic or area that you may end up being passionate about.
Talk with graduate students, like your class TAs, to find out who they work with and what they do.
Attend your course instructor's office hours and talk to them about their research.

Students interested in summer research should refer to the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) website for information about applications, logisitics and deadlines. SURF projects often require a solid mathematical background. Students who have just completed freshman year may not necessarily have the background needed to undertake a SURF project, depending on the project. Please don't worry. The vast majority of math students complete at least one SURF by the time they are finished at Caltech.

Previous math SURF project titles are available here.

If you would like to read the abstracts for these project, please refer to the SURF abstract books.