2026 Symposium for Undergraduate Research in Data Science, Systems, and Security (REU Symposium 2026)
Collocated at the IEEE BigData 2026 Conference
One day in Dec 14-17, 2026, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Description
Undergraduate research plays an important role in attracting our best undergraduates to continue towards graduate education in the science and engineering fields. Publishing research in a professional venue is part of the training for future researchers. The National Science Foundation (NSF) provides support for undergraduate research within the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. The goal of this Symposium is to provide a venue for students to publish their research done as part of the REU program. The symposium seeks original submissions in research areas that are currently funded by the NSF’s directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) or other related directorates. The research topics of this symposium focus on Data Science, Systems, and Security. Research done by undergraduate researchers without explicit funding sources or via funding from similar programs such as Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) are also eligible to submit.
This REU Symposium has been held since 2021. More information can be found at REU Symposium 2021, REU Symposium 2022, REU Symposium 2023, REU Symposium 2024, REU Symposium 2025.
To promote research experiences in K-12, starting 2023, high school students are also eligible to submit although it is highly recommended such submissions are in collaboration with undergraduate students and/or faculty mentors.
The key requirement for this Symposium is that the submission’s lead author must be an undergraduate student or high school student.
Important Dates
- Paper submission due date: September 18, 2026
- Decision notification: October 30, 2026
- Camera-ready due date: November 13, 2026
- Pre-registration: November 20, 2026
- Symposium: One day in December 14-17, 2026
Paper Submission
Authors are invited to submit full papers (maximal 10 pages) or short papers (maximal 6 pages) as per IEEE 8.5 x 11 manuscript guidelines (templates for LaTex, Word and PDF can be found at IEEE Templates for Conference Proceedings). All papers must be submitted via the conference submission system for the symposium.
At least one author of each accepted paper is required to attend the symposium and present the paper. All the accepted papers by the symposium will be included in the Proceedings of the IEEE Big Data 2026 Conference (IEEE BigData 2026) which will be published by IEEE Computer Society.
At least one author of each accepted paper is required to attend the symposium and present the paper. All accepted papers by the symposium will be included in the conference proceedings.
Symposium Organization
Program Chairs
- Dr. Xinghui Zhao, Washington State University, Co-Organizer of the NSF REU Site on Advancing Data-Driven Deep Coupling of Computational Simulations and Experiments
- Dr. Jianwu Wang, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Co-Organizer of the NSF REU Site on Online Interdisciplinary Big Data Analytics in Science and Engineering
- Dr. Xuechen Zhang, Kennesaw State University, Organizer of the NSF REU Site on Advancing Data-Driven Deep Coupling of Computational Simulations and Experiments
- Dr. Xiaokun Yang, University of Houston-Clear Lake, Co-Organizer of the NSF REU Site on Advancing Data-Driven Deep Coupling of Computational Simulations and Experiments
- Dr. Matthias K. Gobbert, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Organizer of the NSF REU Site on Online Interdisciplinary Big Data Analytics in Science and Engineering
Program Committee Members (Tentative)
- Dr. Prasad Calyam, University of Missouri-Columbia, Organizer of the NSF REU Site on Research in Consumer Networking Technologies
- Dr. Chen Cao, Pennsylvania State University Behrend
- Dr. Arielle Carr, Lehigh University
- Dr. Huirong Fu, Oakland University, Organizer of the NSF REU Site: Undergraduate Computer Research in Cybersecurity and AI (UnCoRe-CyberAI)
- Dr. Xunfei Jiang, California State University, Northridge
- Dr. Tuan Le, New Mexico State University
- Dr. Yugyung Lee, University of Missouri-Kansas City
- Dr. Zhichao Liu, University of Houston Clear Lake
- Dr. Enyue (Annie) Lu, Salisbury University, Organizer of the NSF REU Site on Explore Emerging Computing in Science and Engineering (EXERCISE)
- Dr. Kewei Sha, University of North Texas
- Dr. Anuradha Ravi, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Organizer of the NSF REU Site on Smart Computing and Communications
- Dr. Shuai Xu, Case Western Reserve University
- Dr. Xu Tao, Kennesaw State University
- Dr. Boyang Wang, University of Cincinnati
- Dr. Mohammad Wardat, Oakland University
- Dr. Nansong Wu, Sonoma State University
- Dr. Hailu Xu, California State University, Long Beach
- Dr. Xiangliang Zhang, University of Notre Dame
- Dr. Dongfang Zhao, University of Washington
- Dr. Wenfeng Zhao, Binghamton University SUNY
- Dr. Jun Zheng, New Mexico Tech University, Organizer of the NSF REU Site on Emerging Issues in Cybersecurity
- Dr. Weiwei Zhou, University of California Davis