UROP Research Mentor Project Submission Portal: Submission #1004 | Center for Undergraduate Research and Academic Engagement

Submission information

Submission Number: 1004

Submission ID: 19606

Submission UUID: 7befcd86-1065-4d0c-8506-13e042b94473

Submission URI: /urop-research-mentor-project-submission-portal

Submission Update: /urop-research-mentor-project-submission-portal?token=jQcDh1R-nmRgaPpGXsTwILIcvKd6f4UbHCpp7gczcK0

Created: Tue, 04/29/2025 - 04:03 PM

Completed: Tue, 04/29/2025 - 04:03 PM

Changed: Wed, 10/29/2025 - 04:06 PM

Remote IP address: 146.201.37.85

Submitted by: Anonymous

Language: English

Is draft: No

Webform: UROP Project Proposal Portal

Submitted to: UROP Research Mentor Project Submission Portal

Research Mentor Information

Primary Research Mentor Name Paul Van Der Mark

Research Mentor Preferred Pronouns {Empty}

When potential research assistants are reaching out via email, what is your preferred honorific? Dr.

Contact Email (FSU Email if affiliated) pvandermark@fsu.edu

Position Title Faculty

FSU College (if applicable) N/A

FSU Department or Non-FSU Organization Affiliation Research Computing Center

Headshot (optional) {Empty}

Additional Research Mentor(s)

Research Assistant Supervisor (if different from above) {Empty}

Research Assistant Supervisor Preferred Pronouns {Empty}

Research Assistant Supervisor Preferred Honorific? {Empty}

Contact Email (FSU Email if affiliated) {Empty}

Name of Other Faculty/Collaborator(s) (if applicable) Alex Birkovsky

Other Faculty/Collaborator(s) Preferred Pronouns {Empty}

Other Faculty/Collaborator(s) Preferred Honorific? {Empty}

Contact Email (FSU Email if affiliated) abirkovsky@fsu.edu

Overall Project Details

Title of the Project PolicyBot: A Retrieval-Augmented Generation assistant for FSU policy and procurement guidance

Project Keywords llm, rag, ai, resource computing

Are you currently looking for research assistants? No

Number of Research Assistants Needed 1

Relevant Research Assistant Major(s) Computer Science

Project Location: On FSU Main Campus

If the project location is off campus, does the research assistant(s) need to provide their own transportation? {Empty}

Please select the choice that most accurately describes your expectations for the research assistant(s): Partially Remote

Approximately how many hours a week would the research assistant(s) need to work? 8

Roughly what time frame do you expect research assistant(s) to work? Flexible schedule (Combination of business and outside of business. TBD between student and research mentor.)

Overall Research Project Description The Research Computing Center (RCC) at Florida State University supports research and education by maintaining a distinct campus cyberinfrastructure and offering training opportunities and dedicated consulting services. Within RCC, the AI Lab explores the rapidly evolving fields of AI, machine learning, and generative AI to better serve its customers. This has led to several UROP projects, such as the classification of Shakespeare's works and election prediction based on Twitter content.

Research Tasks FSU has published a significant amount of formal documentation on policies related to travel, purchasing, security, HR, and other areas. However, it can be hard to find specific information. The goal of this project is to develop a chatbot that utilizes RAG and LLM technologies to provide users with answers to questions about FSU policies. This will involve scraping relevant policy documents, training an LLM, and making it accessible through a web interface, such as Open WebUI.

Skills that research assistant(s) may need: Interest or experience with Large Language Models.

Mentoring Philosophy The Research Computing Center (RCC) at Florida State University provides high-performance computing resources and expert support, including access to a large compute cluster, GPU servers, and consulting services. Education and innovation are central to our mission. We offer workshops and host internships to help students and researchers develop essential computational skills. Students involved with the RCC enjoy substantial freedom in their research while also receiving strong mentorship and support to ensure their success.

Please provide a link to your publications, a video clip, or a website for your research project (if applicable): https://its.fsu.edu/about-its/initiatives/machine-learning-and-data-sciences-lab

Please add any additional information here (if applicable): {Empty}

Are you interested in participating in the UROP Research Mentor Roundtable? No

Roundtable times and Zoom links NA

UROP Program Elements

Mentor Handbook, FAQs, and Communication Yes

UROP Performance Evaluation Yes

Materials Grant Yes

UROP Poster Presentation Yes

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Year 2025

update url https://cre.fsu.edu/urop-research-mentor-project-submission-portal?token=jQcDh1R-nmRgaPpGXsTwILIcvKd6f4UbHCpp7gczcK0