The Berkeley NSF Numbers, Symmetry, and Geometry at Berkeley RTG will run an REU again during the summer of 2026.
It will be held from June 1st, 2026 (Wednesday) to July 31st, 2026 (Friday).
For reference, here is last year's webpage.
The goal of the REU is to help undergraduates get a taste of mathematical research or research-adjacent experiences. This year, we will have 5-6 graduate student mentors (TBA) lead projects in algebra, geometry, number theory, and representation theory. Past projects have been on varied areas such as function field arithmetic, orbital integrals, Diophantine geometry, and representations of Lie algebras.
Participating students will earn a $5500 stipend for the summer.
The application can be found here. Only current Berkeley undergraduate students are eligible to apply. Please note that your application cannot be edited after submission. Applications will close on February 25th, 11:59pm PST. Decisions will be made around the end of March/early April.
Please note that the application requires one letter of recommendation from a (possibly non-Berkeley) faculty member. You will be asked to provide their email and we will contact them through a separate form for their letter, which is due at March 10th, 11:59pm PST.
Due to funding restrictions, most participants need to be US citizens or permanent residents (with green card), but there will be 1-2 slots for international students, so everyone is welcome to apply. However, students who participated in the program last year are ineligible. Apologies!
During the first (half-)week, the mentors will give talks and lead exercise sessions on their projects. During the exercise sessions, students will work on and present exercises related to background material needed for the projects. After this, students will join 1-2 project groups for the rest of the program.
A typical week of the REU looks like the following: on Monday through Thursday, students will meet with their mentor(s) and research group(s). On Friday, the mentors will organize a social activity as well as a mathematical activity. Past mathematical activities included panels on applying to graduate school, workshops on writing papers or giving mathematical presentations, and talks given by the RTG PIs.
Students will additionally give midterm and final presentations, as well as write a final paper describing their research.