In the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences (CEMS), there are ample opportunities for motivated graduate students to pursue research projects under the mentorship of a faculty member.
UVM researchers bring in over $120 million in grants annually, and UVM ranks high in the list of colleges and universities surveyed for federal support of research and development.
Below are just some of the opportunities available throughout the College. For more information, contact the faculty member(s) listed or email info@cems.uvm.edu.
Engineering | Computer Science | Mathematics & Statistics
Transportation Research Center | VSGC/NASA EPSCoR
Openings: 1 MS/PhD
Start: January 2008 (or when filled)
Contact: Jeff Marshall (jeffm@cems.uvm.edu)
One PhD or outstanding MS student is sought starting January 2008 to work on modification of an existing discrete-particle code for use in biowaste combustion applications. The research project is developing a multiscale model for biowaste combustion, utilizing advanced CFD modeling and experimental data in a collaboration with University of Iowa, University of Vermont and Tsinghau University. The research will utilize an agent-based complex systems approach with a three-level multiscale framework, leading from analysis of individual biofuel waste components to the entire combustion unit. The biowaste components might consist of wood chips, oat or rice hulls, sections of wheat or grass stems, etc. The student should have a good background in CFD and combustion as well as strong programming skills. Commitment to completion of the PhD program is essential. Outstanding MS level students will also be considered. Position will remain open until filled.
Openings: 1 PhD
Start: January 2008 (or when filled)
Contact: Jeff Marshall (jeffm@cems.uvm.edu)
One PhD student or postdoctoral research associate is sought starting January 2008 to work on the development of a new vorticity-based computational method for rotorcraft flows using a multiscale framework. The proposed method will employ a discretely-conservative vorticity transport method with a Chimera grid approach. A vorticity-based LES method will be used for turbulence modeling. Applicants should have strong overall mathematical and computational skills with prior experience in CFD code development. Experience in coding in FORTRAN and experience with vorticity-based computational methods are desirable. PhD student applicants should be prepared to submit GRE scores and TOEFFL scores (for international students). Position will remain open until filled.
Openings: 1 MS/PhD
Start: Fall 2010
Contact: Jeff Frolik (jfrolik@uvm.edu)
One graduate research assistantship is available for an MS or PhD Electrical Engineering student interested in working in the area of wireless communications and sensor design under the supervision of Professor Jeff Frolik. The project will investigate a new passive, wireless sensor technology and its application in harsh physical and communication environments. The work will include design, measurement and analysis, and is to be conducted in conjunction with colleagues atthe University of South Florida.
There are no openings at this time.
Openings: Email for opportunities
Start: Ongoing
Contact: Chris Danforth (chris.danforth@uvm.edu)
Small changes in the composition of the Earth's atmosphere may result in large shifts in the climate. Evaluating the Earth's sensitivity to changes in the environment is one of the most important scientific endeavors of the 21st century. Professor Chris Danforth is developing a distributed computing project with Robert F. Cahalan, head of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Climate Radiation Branch, to estimate climate sensitivity to various physical parameters with a simple climate model. To generate several centuries of simulations, they are implementing their models on Goddard's Thunderhead cluster (1.2 Teraflops). They are also planning to use Apple's parallel computational environment Xgrid to run climate simulations as a background application on the network of desktop G5s in the Climate Radiation Branch. The project will explore the climate model parameter space and evaluate which processes are most important to our understanding of the Earth's climate. For more information, contact Prof. Chris Danforth (chris.danforth@uvm.edu).
Openings: Email for opportunities
Start: Ongoing
Contact: Dan Archdeacon (dan.archdeacon@uvm.edu)
Professor Dan Archdeacon is currently supervising two PhD students on topics in topological graph theory and combinatorial designs. One portion of the overall project is embeddings of graphs on manifolds. These embeddings have special properties, like all faces are triangles or quadrilaterals, with all face-adjacencies. Other topics include scheduling round-robin tournaments from year to year such that collectively the schedules are as different as possible. Professor Archdeacon is also supervising two MS students on a game approach to finding noncontractible cycles in a surface and Room Squares respectively. Funding for graduate student support is currently pending.
Openings: Email for opportunities
Start: Ongoing
Contact: Chris Danforth (chris.danforth@uvm.edu)
Numerical weather prediction relies on the efficient combination of model predictions with satellite observations to estimate the state of the atmosphere. The procedure by which this estimate and its associated probability distribution are generated is referred to as data assimilation. Given the probability distributions associated with the model prediction and the observations, the Kalman Filter finds the combined probability distribution which minimizes the mean square error. The chaos group at UMD has developed a new method to make the Kalman Filter more accurate and efficient for operational use; their state-of-the-art technique is known as the LETKF. Professor Chris Danforth is currently adapting the techniques he has developed for model error estimation and correction into the LETKF. The numerical experiments are being performed on the Japanese Earth Simulator, one of the fastest computers in the world (36 Teraflops).
Openings: Email for opportunities
Start: Ongoing
Contact: Chris Danforth (chris.danforth@uvm.edu), Peter Dodds (peter.dodds@uvm.edu)
Online journals or "blogs" represent a vast, unsolicited source of information on the thoughts and feelings of a large community of people. The nature of these writings lends itself to automated sentiment analysis for the purpose of understanding how people of different countries, longitudes, sexes, and age groups feel about their lives. Is a seasonal affective disorder visible in the blogosphere? What effect do holidays have on the emotional state of the inhabitants of different countries? Do emotions spread across the network of blogs in a manner dynamically similar to viral media? This project uses data from the site wefeelfine.org to answer these and other questions. Online experiments are also being designed to test the role of collective influence in decision making.
Openings: Email for opportunities
Start: Ongoing
Contact: George Pinder (pinder@cems.uvm.edu)
Professor George Pinder's research includes:
Openings: Email for opportunities
Start: Ongoing
Contact: Chris Danforth (chris.danforth@uvm.edu)
Professor Chris Danforth's research, in collaboration with James Yorke and Eugenia Kalnay of the Chaos group at the University of Maryland, focuses on developing novel techniques to improve the ability to make accurate predictions of physical systems using numerical models. Since research thus far has proven the project's concepts to be successful in use with small global weather models, these same techniques will now be applied to a version of the operational weather model used by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). This model has about 100 million degrees of freedom; it is used by the National Weather Service (NWS) to issue predictions to the government and media.
Openings: Graduate Scholar Research Assistantships
Start: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Deadline: Applications must be received at the TRC by March 1st for consideration for the coming academic year.
Contact: Glenn McRae, TRC Graduate Program Coordinator (glenn.mcrae@uvm.edu)
One-year (12-month) graduate student research assistantships of $28,000
are available to full-time UVM graduate students (U.S. Citizens or
permanent residents) who work as research assistants (RAs) for 20 hours
per week on transportation research related to the Center's theme.
Students may be in any graduate program within UVM's colleges or
schools. An additional $1,000 may be available to support the selected
student's professional travel, conferences or registration fees. RAs
must also apply to the Graduate Certificate Program in Sustainable Transportation Systems.
Most RAs will be provided with office space at the Transportation Research Center.
Find out more and apply now!
Openings: 4 - 6 Graduate Fellowships
Start: Fall 2008
Contact: Laurel Zeno (zeno@cems.uvm.edu)
The Vermont Space Grant Consortium (VSGC) / NASA EPSCoR offers a number of research opportunities: