The target group for this program are undergraduate students in junior standing. We may consider students at other seniority levels on an exceptional basis. This program is primarily intended to increase research participation among students from historically underrepresented groups in computing (in terms of, e.g., gender, race, socio-economic status, and disability status), so we particularly encourage applications from these student groups.  

Our focus is on computer science and related areas, such as computer engineering, statistics, information science, and data science. We will consider students from all majors relevant to these areas. We will also consider students from other majors if they show promise and interest in computer science and any of these related areas.

No, this program is completely free. 

All of the program activities are planned for Spring 2025. There is a possibility of summer research internships, but this is subject to availability of funds.

We will make decisions and send notifications mid January.

The proposed timeline for the 2024-2025 program is as follows

• Dec 30, 2024 Applications are due

• By Jan 18, 2025 Notifications sent to students who have been accepted to the program

• Jan 24, 2025: Kick-off workshop

• Jan 27 1-May 10, 2025: Spring semester activities including peer mentoring and faculty mentoring, possibly some social events, etc.

• May 15-Aug 15 2025: Summer internships

• Mid-Aug 2025: End of program 

While we cannot guarantee admission to any graduate programs, we note that research experience and participation in programs such as this one are generally viewed favorably by graduate admissions committees.

All summer research internships positions are paid at the standard student hourly rate, and are subject to the availability of funding by individual faculty or from university/industry sponsors. Our goal is to provide research internship opportunities to all WISCERS fellows, but we cannot guarantee funding for each student. 

Graduate student and faculty mentors are participating in this program as volunteers. We try to recruit these mentors from all areas listed in our program description and make every effort to pair you with mentors from the research area in which you express interest. However, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to pair you with a specific mentor or a specific research area, as this depends on the availability of mentors.

To fully benefit from a program like this one, we expect you to participate in all of the associated activities. However, we understand that you may occasionally need to miss some of the activities due to other academic or personal commitments.

We plan to have a cohort of around 20 students. 

The program will have in-person events at UW-Madison. Thus we encourage applications from students from the Madison/Milwaukee areas but might be able to accommodate students from other parts of Wisconsin as well.