Undergraduate Research

Academic Year Grants

Each semester, the Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities (RSCA) office offers the Academic Year Undergraduate Research Experience (AYURE) grant to support faculty-mentored student scholarship. 

 

AYURE Program Funding

Eligibility

These competitive grants are open to all undergraduate students and their full-time faculty mentors.

Projects must satisfy these core criteria:

  • Through one-on-one training from the faculty expert, the project extends the student’s learning and professional development beyond what is possible in the classroom.
  • Projects are also intensive, taking the semester or longer to complete. Mentors should meet at least weekly with their student to discuss progress and problems that arise during the semester.
  • The student is involved at a high level in multiple phases of the project.

Most projects involve only one faculty mentor and one student. But we have occasionally supported larger projects with two faculty mentors and/or two students.

Fall 2022 AYURE Application

You might find it useful to study the AYURE Proposal Evaluation sheet (pdf) used by the review committee. 

 

Samples of Prior Proposals (pdfs)

*These sample proposals were for our summer grant (SURE). That application is very similar to the AYURE one. Each was considered strong by the RSCA Board, though, of course, none are flawless. Note that the application questions in these older samples might be slightly different than those on the current application. 

 Congratulations to all 2022 Spring AYURE award recipients!

 

Abraham, Alina (Biology), ‘22 

Mangal, Riddhi (Biology), ‘22 

Mathew, Megha (Biology), ‘22 

Faculty Mentor:  Pamela St. John (Chemistry) 

Project Title: Measuring lethal concentrations of deuterated bisphenol A in regenerating planaria 

 

Burris, Matthew (Mathematics), ‘23 

Owens, Ryan (Mathematics), ‘23 

Faculty Mentor: Moshe Cohen (Mathematics) 

Project Title: The geometry of line arrangements 

 

DeSilva, Sherine (Cellular Biology), ‘22  

Furfaro, Julia (Cellular Biology), ‘22 

Faculty Mentor: Lydia Bright (Biology) 

Project Title: Functional effects of gene expression changes during RNAi-induced knockdown of Paramecium caudatum 

 

Durmazolu, Francesca (Biology), ‘23 

Faculty Mentor: Maureen Morrow (Biology) 

Project Title: Bacterial evolution in response to experimental climate change: Cataloging plasmids of abacterial culture collection 

 

Havnaer, Calvin (Biochemistry), ‘22 

Faculty Mentor: Frantz Folmer-Andersen (Chemistry) 

Project Title: Synthesis of modified enantioselective receptors 

 

Morales, Nicole (Mechanical Engineering), ‘23 

Faculty Mentor: Rachmadian Wulandana (Mechanical Engineering) 

Project Title: Bio-inspired axial turbines for hydrokinetic energy harvesting 

 

Neumann, Lindsay (Cellular/Molecular Biology), ‘22 

Maureen Morrow (Biology) 

Project Title: Bacterial evolution in response to experimental climate change: Cataloging plasmids of a bacterial culture collection 

 

Pilmanis, Aleks (Music & Computer Science) 

Faculty Advisor: Phyllis Chen (Music) 

Project Title: New music for synth series 

 

Sanford, Kimberly (Adolescent Education: English), ‘22 

Faculty Mentor: April Coughlin (Teaching & Learning) 

Project Title: Universal access: Bringing disability studies to higher education 

 

Talanki, Varsha (Biology), ‘22 

Faculty Mentor: Aaron Haselton (Biology) 

Project Title: Continued investigation into the insecticidal effects of Sassurea lappa extract against the vinegar fly, Drosophila melanogaster 

 

Zeppieri, Zachary (Mechanical Engineering), ‘22 

Faculty Mentor: Heather Lai (Engineering) 

Project Title: Dynamic behavior of 3D printed compliant joints.