WAVES 2021 Participants
Applications are only accepted via links at https://mmore500.com/waves/
We are looking to recruit at least eight early-career participants (including undergraduate students) for a ten-week, funded, full-time, fully-remote software development workshop during the summer of 2021.
The goal of the workshop is four-fold:
- to help participants advance their careers by skillbuilding through hands-on C++ and/or JavaScript software development in an academic setting,
- to catalyze effective science communication and science pedagogy by helping participants develop the know-how to showcase their research through interactive web applications,
- to jumpstart software development on web framework and core digital evolution tools in support of the next version of the Avida-ED scientific and educational software, and
- to produce software that broadly enriches the digital evolution, scientific, education, and open-source communities.
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Application reviews will begin on March 26, 2021, but will continue on a rolling basis after that. For full consideration, please submit your application by this date. We will update this page to announce when all workshop positions have been filled. Reccomendation letters should be uploaded by March 31, 2021, but will also be considered after this date on a rolling basis. We will announce participant selection no later than April 12, 2021.
Applications are only accepted via links at https://mmore500.com/waves/
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This workshop is organized in conjunction with the Avida-ED. Avida-ED extends the full-fledged Avida software, originally developed for digital evolution research, as a freely-available, interactive web application. This web application enables laboratory activities that teach evolution through experiments with self-replicating computer programs. A curriculum of lesson plans and classroom materials, targeted to high school and university students, supports instructors. Outreach and training puts these tools into hundreds of real-world classrooms. From there, the team has used evidence-based methods to evaluate activities’ effectiveness in terms of actualized learning outcomes.
Each WAVES workshop participant will collaborate with an assigned mentor on a software development project related to Avida-ED or the underlying scientific software tools that power it. We will help participants choose projects based on their personal interests and background during the first week of the workshop. We describe several possible project categories below. Participants’ projects will directly contribute open-source software to the foundation of future versions of Avida and Avida-ED. To demonstrate their software, participants will build their own prototype scientific web application/mini research project or contribute to an existing web application/research project. As a culmination of their workshop experience and an exercise in professional communication, participants will publish a blog post describing how their software works and how to use it.
During the workshop, participants will also engage in a weekly software discussion group and a weekly group check-in meeting.
🔗 Logistics
The virtual workshop will take place between June 14, 2021 and August 20, 2021. If these dates don’t work for you, we may be able to shift this schedule by a week or two for individual participants. Let us know in your application and we will do our best to accommodate you. Participants will be expected to commit to full-time (approximately 40 hours/week) engagement with the workshop. To accommodate multiple U.S. time zones, all group meetings will be held over videoconference sometime between noon and 5pm EST (GMT-4). A $6,000 stipend will be disbursed to participants in five bi-weekly installments of $1,200
All U.S. citizens/permanent residents are eligible to apply, as are international students already enrolled at Michigan State University. The workshop will be aimed at upper-level undergraduates in computer science, but graduate students or other early-career computer scientists are also welcome to apply. Past workshop participants are welcome to apply, as well.
We are seeking participants with prior practical experience in computer science: writing and running software of some sort. Prior experience with C++ and/or JavaScript is expected, but not strictly required. We especially encourage applications from members of underrepresented groups in computer science.
Applications should consist of a single PDF file named application.pdf containing:
- a cover page with your name, your GitHub username, and your email address,
- a curriculum vitae or resume,
- a brief (appox. 500 to 1000 words) statement that describes
- your personal background and career goals,
- your interest in the program and how participating in the workshop will advance your objectives,
- your commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (see below), and
- an interesting coding project you’ve tackled.
- in any setting: school, hackathon, personal project, research, work, etc.
- as possible, link us to the code, the deployment, the project website, a writeup, and/or presentation!
4. the name, email, and relationship of any letter writers you have asked to submit on your behalf (see below).
The portion of your statement covering diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) can discuss any combination of
- your contribution to promoting DEI (past, present, or future),
- your experiences with DEI issues,
- your perspective on DEI issues,
- your expectations from the workshop with respect to DEI issues, or
- any other content that reflects engagement with DEI issues.
Application reviews will begin on March 26, 2021, but will continue on a rolling basis after that. For full consideration, please submit your application by this date. We will update this page to announce when all workshop positions have been filled. Reccomendation letters should be uploaded by March 31, 2021, but will also be considered after this date on a rolling basis. We will announce participant selection no later than April 12, 2021.
🔗 Example C++ Projects:
Build core digital evolution framework tools in the Modular Agent-Based Evolution (MABE) project.
Develop virtual CPUs for the Avida organisms.
Build simple grid-based virtual worlds for organisms to move through and interact with.
Extend and existing data management tools for fast and dynamic data manipulation.
Improve unit tests and automatic testing suite.
As part of their work, participants will assemble a mini research project that demonstrates their software.
🔗 Example Emscripten Projects:
Build core web framework tools in the current Avida-ED system and in the Empirical C++ library for scientific software development.
Develop a C++ interface to facilitate loading and saving data files in Javascript.
Develop a C++ framework (that leverages existing JavaScript tools) to facilitate web page layout.
Develop C++ wrappers for JavaScript visualization libraries.
Develop a JavaScript front-end and interface to C++ configuration objects.
As part of their work, participants will assemble an example research, educational, or science communication web application that demonstrates their software.
🔗 Example Pedagogy Projects:
Developing Avida-ED lab activities incorporating R-based exercises.
🔗 Other Example Web Projects
- Clean up and package existing drag and drop tools.
- Write a C++-Javascript interface to allow the web viewer access to information about global resources in the underlying simulation.
- Work on desktop windows emulation in current Avida-ED software.
- Make a touch and mobile interface for current Avida-ED software.
- Work on back-end tools that allow instructors to monitor web applications within their classrooms.
- Write software to facilitate easy translation of labels, buttons, and other text in the Avida-ED web application.
As part of their work, participants will make contributions directly to existing Avida-ED software.