Carnegie Mellon's Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Software Engineering (REUSE) program is an opportunity for undergraduate students to spend a summer working with some of the world's leading Software Engineering faculty researchers. A number of projects are available in diverse areas such as distributed systems, machine learning, privacy, security, software testing, and verification. New for summer 2026, Carnegie Mellon's Security and Privacy Undergraduate Research (SPUR) Scholars program is an opportunity for undergraduate researchers to spend the summer working with some of the world's leading Security and Privacy faculty researchers. Project areas include hardware security, usable privacy and security, software testing, program analysis, cryptography, and verification. Accepted students will work closely with CMU faculty and researchers on research problems with the potential for publication and significant impact on the future practice of software engineering and related areas. Some of our past REUSE students have gone on to join top Ph.D. programs in computer science such as those at CMU, Berkeley, and the University of Washington; have published papers in major conferences; have won NSF graduate research fellowships; and have placed in the CRA's Outstanding Undergraduate award and ACM's student research competitions. We are excited to see what you can do! Special Note: We are especially interested in promoting research opportunities for students traditionally underrepresented in computer science, and for first- and second-year undergraduate students. Neither research experience nor advanced coursework in computer science or software engineering is required. NOTE ON REFERENCE LETTERS: We require at least 1 reference letter via ETAP. Optionally, we will accept up to 2 additional letters for review. If you would like to include multiple references, please instruct your additional references to email their letters directly to: reuse-letters@cs.cmu.
You are eligible if you meet all of the following criteria: You are currently an undergraduate student at an institution of higher education in the United States (or you are a U.S. Citizen, U.S. National, or U.S. Permanent Resident and currently enrolled as an undergraduate student at an institution of higher education outside the United States). You will graduate in November 2026 or later. You will be at least 18 years old when the program starts. Unfortunately high school students and foreign nationals studying at non-U.S. institutions are not eligible for REUSE. If you are on a student visa and you are accepted to REUSE, you will need to apply for CPT or OPT at your home institution before the program starts.
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