Several faculty members are considering working with students this summer. Please contact them directly if you are interested and would like more information.
- Adrien Allorant (Exploring Alternative Measures of Socio-Economic Position in Low and Middle-Income Countries, see description below)
- Zajj Daugherty (combinatorial representation theory and symmetric functions)
- Kyle Ormsby and Angélica Osorno (transfer systems - more information below)
- David Perkinson (matroid theory)
- Anna Ritz (computational biology & graph algorithms - see this paper or this paper. Also looking for students interested in developing software - see this github)
- Lenny Wainstein (statistics)
Exploring Alternative Measures of Socio-Economic Position in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
Background: Traditional methods of assessing socio-economic status, such as income or consumption data, are often inadequate in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly among vulnerable populations. The Wealth Index, developed in 2001, sought to address this gap by using household asset ownership data from demographic surveys to estimate socio-economic position. While this approach has been widely used, it has notable limitations, including a bias towards urban households and the use of a simplistic household model that may not accurately reflect varied family structures across different cultures.
Project Overview: This research project aims to investigate and develop alternative methods for measuring socio-economic status in LMICs. The project will involve a thorough review of existing asset-based socio-economic indices and an exploration of new methodologies that could provide a more accurate reflection of socio-economic positions in these regions.
Contact: Adrien Allorant
Transfer Systems
Kyle Ormsby & Angélica Osorno seek six Reed students to conduct research on transfer systems, a combinatorial aspect of equivariant homotopy theory, as part of our NSF-funded Collaborative Mathematics Research Group (CMRG). To learn more about the subject, check out our survey article in the Notices of the AMS! (The CMRG projects will be independent from the MRC mentioned in the article. Also note that references [BHK+23, BMO23, BMO24, FOO+22, HML24] from the article are all coauthored with undergrads!)
The program runs for seven weeks from July 8 to August 23, with participants in-person on campus. Participants will receive a $4480 stipend but must arrange their own housing for the summer.
For full consideration, apply by February 23 at this link. You must submit (1) a personal statement and (2) the name of a faculty reference. The personal statement should consist of at most one page of English prose including:
(a) Your relevant background and experience, including prior research, mathematics projects, ormathematics-related jobs.
(b) Your reasons for interest in the program.
(c) Your professional goals.