Get Involved

Engagement of BU faculty, BU students, and Red Hat personnel is critical to the success of the Collaboratory. Below you will find information on the opportunities for collaboration. If you have questions about any opportunity or would like to share an idea, please use our contact form.

Lead a Collaboratory Roundtable

The Collaboratory will sponsor a series of roundtable discussions to build connections and conversations between BU faculty and Red Hat personnel. Roundtables may be led by both BU Faculty and Red Hat engineers. Topics will be selected based on input from BU and Red Hat.  These roundtables could generate research projects (see below), curricular innovations, extra curricular projects, student opportunities and more. Faculty and Red Hat personnel interested in leading a Roundtable should send an email to rhcollab@bu.edu with a few sentences describing the key idea of a roundtable. The Collaboratory will reach out to faculty at BU and staff at Red Hat to determine interest. If there is interest, the Collaboratory will organize the event, including (at the request of the proposer) connecting the leader to potential participants coordinating all logistics and assuming all costs.

Successful proposals will create roundtables that:

  • Align with the core technical thrusts of the Collaboratory
  • Connect BU faculty and students to Red Hat engineers working in related areas
  • Promote research and/or curricular collaboration
  • Roundtables may be held at BU or at Red Hat
  • Roundtables may be led by BU faculty and/or Red Hat engineers

Propose a Research Project

The Red Hat Collaboratory at Boston University will provide funding to support the work of faculty, PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and visiting scientists. The Collaboratory oversight committee welcomes ideas for collaborative research projects that seek to advance the state of the art in computing at scale, with an eye toward contributing successful results to the open source community. All projects must involve at least one person from Red Hat and one person from BU. Proposals are welcome from both BU faculty and Red Hat engineers and will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Faculty interested in proposing a project should review the guidelines online and email rhcollab@bu.edu to initiate the discussion.

Successul proposals will:

  • Align with the core technical thrusts of the Collaboratory
  • Leverage the skills and expertise of both BU faculty and Red Hat engineers
  • Engage students, and potential academic and industry partners
  • Contribute knowledge to the Open Source Community
  • Advance the state of the art in Research
  • BU proposals must include a letter of support from the Department Chair
  • Red Hat proposals must include a letter of support from a manager
  • Red Hat PI’s must contribute at least 20% over the project period

Format of the Proposal and Criteria:

  • Minimum of 2 pages and maximum of 4 pages, including budget, bios etc.
  • Points to cover in proposal:
    • Define the Project
    • What is the scientific gap? How are you going to fill it?
    • What are the metrics of success?
    • Should the project reach the desired milestones what are the next steps? How could this project continue?
    • What is the likelihood this project will lead to a publication?
    • What are the specific roles of the BU and NIBR scientists?
    • What is going to be exchanged? (Will an MTA be required?)
    • What is the budget?

Support Student and Campus Engagement Activities

The Collaboratory provides training opportunities for students through internships, student projects, student club support, and professional development sessions and engages BU in the development of STEM initiatives in and around Boston. Student and campus engagement activities will be coordinated in close collaboration with BU Career Services and BU Spark!. We encourage you to visit the Collaboratory website to learn more about the variety of ways that our Red Hat colleagues will be engaging with our students. We also invite you to explore opportunities for engagement with Red Hat that involve your classes. A few recent highlights and plans for the coming year:

  • Red Hat Office Hours: Held monthly throughout the year and hosted on and off campus. Red Hat engineers will be available informally to meet and network with BU students
  • Culture and Professional Development Workshops: Held throughout the year. These sessions will provide BU students with an opportunity to connect with Red Hatters as they consider their own career goals
  • Student Club Support: Red Hat has already sponsored both BostonHacks and SheHack, and looks forward to engaging with student clubs through BU Spark!
  • Red Hat Day:  Hosted by BU Center for Career Development, the first annual Red Hat Day was held on September 8, 2017. This event provided an excellent networking opportunity for BU students and Red Hat engineers.

These events will be posted on the Collaboratory Events calendar. For more information, please email rhcollab@bu.edu.