Undergraduate Research Opportunities

Computing Sciences students at Elon have numerous opportunities to participate in experiential learning through research.

Research opportunities may involve work on campus with Elon professors or work at other institutions. Recent students have participated in summer research projects on topics such as graph partitioning, network visualization, assignment problems, and lasers, and several have presented their work at regional and national conferences.

Computing Sciences students and faculty members regularly participate in research supported by SURE (Summer Undergraduate Research Experiences), a program sponsored by the Elon Undergraduate Research Program. Elon College Fellows and Honors Fellows also receive financial support for their research.

Students routinely present their research on campus at the annual SURF (Student Undergraduate Research Forum).

SURF presentations Spring 2012

• CREATING ADAPTABLE COMMUNICATION SOFTWARE FOR DISABLED USERS - presented by Amanda J. Bienz; Dr. Shannon Duvall, mentor
• ENGINEERING ON THE GO: DESIGNING A „SERIOUS GAME? TO MAKE GAMES ON THE ANDROID PLATFORM - presented by Thomas W. Price; Dr. Joel Hollingsworth, mentor
• THE EFFIENCY AND VERSATILITY OF VISUAL PASSWORDS - presented by David S. Williams, Jr.; Dr. Duke Hutchings, mentor

Student presentations and research from recent years

Faculty research interests

Faculty members in Computing Sciences at Elon have expertise in a wide variety of research areas as shown below. Students interested in these or other topics are encouraged to contact the appropriate faculty member for discussion and possible collaboration.

• Megan Squires Conklin: data mining, machine learning, data analysis (applications: web data mining, spam mining/filtering, computer forensics, interestingness, neural networks), cyberculture, especially online communities, economies and governments (applications: social software)
• Shannon Duvall: Artificial Intelligence, machine learning
• Lynn Heinrichs: gender differences in Information Technology, Information Systems education, assimilation of Information Technology
• Joel Hollingsworth: operating systems, distributed processing, networking
• Duke Hutchings: human-computer interaction, usability, usable security, information visualization
• Dave Powell: decision analysis tools, genetic algorithms, optimization, rule based systems, genetic programming.
• Alexander Yap: e-Commerce, virtual reality