The Professional Research Experience Program (PREP) is a special partnership between the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and CU Boulder. PREP provides research opportunities to CU undergraduate and graduate students, as well as researchers with a Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD in NIST labs to gain research experience alongside NIST scientists.
The Communications Technology Laboratory (CTL) at NIST is looking for a University of Colorado Boulder undergraduate to help them with the following project:
NIST’s current suite of financial management tools are outdated requiring a number of workarounds in order to provide complete situational awareness to management. Each unit at NIST has independently developed tools designed for that purpose, most of which are in the form of spreadsheets with little to no automated integration or data presentation capability. NIST’s CTL has begun the process of replacing an antiquated system of spreadsheets with a relational database capable of automatically providing the solvency information desired by management. The tool, programmed in MS Access with Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) modules, is minimally functional, lacking the dedicated support of a skilled team of programmers. The goal of the project is to make the current tool completely functional while preparing to transition the application to a more robust and flexible programming language. Complete functionality will include: the ability to provide real time financial status at the project, group, division, and lab level; ability to track individual transactions throughout their lifecycle; incorporation of a workflow process providing seamless request to delivery service; and designing the system architecture required for a more robust SQL based and web based application. This experience is designed to give researchers an opportunity to collect, organize, analyze, and present process oriented data as useful information that aides managers decisions.
Eligibility to be in PREP:
- Major must be in a STEM related field and student must possess a 3.0 GPA or higher
Undergraduate students are compensated with an hourly rate of pay:
- Freshman - $10.50/hr
- Sophomores - $11.50/hr
- Juniors - $12.50/hr
- Seniors - $13.50/hr
If interested, please send your resume, transcript, and one letter of recommendation to the Program Manager of PREP, Tiffany Mason, at tiffany.mason@colorado.edu.