U.S. CMS - PURSUE (Program for Undergraduate Research SUmmer Experience)

TL;DR

The U.S. CMS - PURSUE program is a pioneering virtual summer internship aimed at increasing participation of under-represented students in High Energy Physics through hands-on research, training, and mentorship.

Contribution

This paper introduces the first virtual summer research internship in HEP targeting under-represented students, addressing barriers and expanding research opportunities.

Findings

Students gained practical research skills in HEP.

The program successfully engaged students from minority-serving institutions.

Participants developed skills in software, data science, and machine learning.

Abstract

Students from under-represented populations, including those at minority serving institutions have traditionally faced many barriers that have resulted in their being under-represented in High Energy Physics. These barriers include lack of research infrastructure and opportunities, insufficient mentoring, lack of support networks, and financial hardship, among many others. Recently the U.S. CMS Collaboration launched a pilot program U.S. CMS - PURSUE (Program for Undergraduate Research SUmmer Experience) to address these barriers. A 10-week paid internship program, the very first of its kind in an HEP experiment, was organised during the summer of 2022. Students were selected predominantly from Minority Serving Institutions with no research program in HEP. This pilot program provided a structured hands-on research experience under the mentor-ship of U.S. CMS scientists from several collaborating institutions. In addition to emphasis on hands-on research, the program offered a set of software training modules for the first few weeks. These were interleaved with a series of lectures every week covering a broad range of topics. The students were exposed to cutting-edge particle physics research and developed a broad set of skills in software, computing, data science, and machine learning. The modality of this program was virtual, due to the unknown circumstances following the pandemic. There is plan to continue the internship program annually, with in-person training and research participation. In this paper, we describe the experience with the pilot program U.S. CMS - PURSUE.