Campus & Community

SOURCE Opens New Round of Applications for Undergraduate Research Fellowships

Thursday, January 26, 2023, By Diane Stirling

Undergraduate students seeking funding to work with faculty mentors on research and creative projects can apply for those opportunities in February and March.

Students interested in funding for summer 2023 and/or academic year 2023-24 should submit an Intent to Apply form by Thursday, Feb. 16. A fully completed application is also due by Thursday, March 2. Applications can be submitted through . More details about the opportunity are available on the . A list of recipients from the fall ’22 application cycle can be found .

Application Components

Application components include a project proposal, budget, resume, transcript and recommendation from the desired faculty mentor. The SOURCE assists students in developing competitive application materials with workshops and drop-in hours to give feedback on draft materials. Students who are interested in applying should contact SOURCE for assistance and more information.

The grants are administered by the University’s Office of Research through SOURCE using Invest ϲ funds. Those fellowships and additional Renée Crown University Honors Program Awards support student-designed and faculty-mentored independent research and creative projects with funding of up to $7,500. In fall 2022, 60 students were awarded SOURCE Fellowships (including six SOURCE-LSAMP Fellowships, funded by the LSAMP Program) and 18 students were awarded Honors Program Crown Awards.

SOURCE Fellowships have been awarded since spring 2019, with over 700 students funded for their research and creative activity in all disciplines.

New Sciences/Professional Award

The spring application cycle will also award the interdisciplinary Patricia A. Wood, M.D., Ph.D., Spinoza Award, funding that is intended for students who want to explore philosophical aspects of issues that arise within the sciences or other professional disciplines.

students chat about their projects at a poster presentation fair for undergraduates doing research

Students in the SOURCE undergraduate research program presented their projects at a poster information fair. (Photo by Angela Ryan)

Sample Projects

Examples of students currently funded in the program and studying these topics include:

  • Brianna Estrada (College of Arts and Sciences), with Sarah Woolf-King, associate professor of psychology, on “Associations Between Sexual/Gender Minority Stress and the Drinking Outcomes of Non-Binary College Students”
  • Chelsea Clark (Visual and Performing Arts) and Kaili Johnson (Management), with Jody Nyboer, assistant professor in environmental and interior design and the M.F.A. design program, on “Evermore: Research Study and App Development,” on learning how Millennial and Gen Z audiences understand and engage with NFTs (non-fungible tokens, or digital assets)
  • Ryan Ally (Visual and Performing Arts), with Laura Heyman, associate professor of film and media arts and art photography program coordinator, “The Guyanese American Dream,” a pictorial look at the lives of Guyanese people from the perspectives of lifestyles in their home country and after emigrating to Queens, New York
  • Zicheng Zhang (School of Architecture) with Joseph Godlewski, associate professor of architecture, “Adaptive Misuse: Hacking Present with the Past,” examining how adaptive reuse and creative misuse as a design approach to answer the question of how, in a culture of transience and rapid obsolescence, the architectural past informs and inspires architectural practices of today
  • Michael Perry (College of Arts and Sciences/College of Engineering and Computer Science), with Venkata Gadikota, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, on “Reducing Nonadaptive Group Testing Algorithmic Complexity Over Hyper-grid Structures,” which looks at leveraging the complex intrapersonal connections between individuals to improve upon current information theoretical bounds for group testing