Doing research as an undergraduate can be fun, challenging, and rewarding—and it can help you decide whether you’re interested in grad school. Our research group includes many talented undergraduate researchers, and we often look for new collaborators. The same applies to MEng students who want to do get involved in research for their required project credits. Here are some things you should know about research in our group:
- We are mainly interested in programming languages, computer architecture, and their intersection. So if either of those topics is exciting to you, we might be a good fit.
- You should also consider contacting other labs at Cornell! Try the PL faculty in CS or the architecture faculty in CSL.
- There is no strict “minimum experience” required to get involved in research, but it really helps to have some advanced coursework done. For Cornell undergrads, we recommend that you have finished CS 3110, CS 3410, or similar courses in ECE.
- You do not need to have specific research directions in mind. The way this usually works is that new researchers join an ongoing project and “own” a specific piece of work that they contribute to an overall whole.
- You also do not need to be planning on going to grad school. Research can be useful even if it doesn’t lead to a career in research. However, trying out research is the best way to decide whether you might be interested in grad school.
- Most undergrad researchers get involved during the semester, when you will need to balance research commitments with coursework. (And all MEng projects are during the semester.) However, it’s also possible to do research over the summer, when you treat it more like a full-time job.
- You can do research either for credit, by registering for CS 4999 (for undergrads) or CS 5999 (for MEng projects), or for money, in which case we’ll hire you on an hourly basis.
We use GitHub issues to communicate with Cornell students interested in joining our research group. Please fill out our issue template and we’ll get back to you in the comments there.
Please excuse us if it takes a while to get back to you, or if we don’t end up finding a good fit. Research projects are somewhat unpredictable by nature, and opportunities to collaborate with new researchers don’t always exist at every point in time. Remember to cast a wide net and consider other labs too!