Hi my name is Jen
Smith I am the Dean of the College of
Arts and Sciences and I am here to
welcome you to our webinar on
undergraduate research opportunities in
Arts and Sciences at Wash U so if you
can see the text poll we'd love to get a
sense of who's with us and what kind of
academic subjects you're interested in
aha physics excellent I'm always hoping
against hope that there are some
geologists out there if there are any of
you please represent some usually the
only one I'm a professor of geology as
you might have just guessed from from
that and so I'm really just gonna
welcome you and give you a couple
minutes of overview of Arts and Sciences
and then I'm going to turn it over to my
colleagues from the office of
undergraduate research to answer
questions and talk to you a little bit
more about the specifics of how
undergrads can be engaged in research
and so you can type questions into the
Q&A and we will get to them to the best
of our ability and this is also being
recorded for people to be able to come
back to and check out answers a little
bit later Here I am hello
so we're really really excited that you
all could join us and we're psyched that
you're showing up to talk a little bit
about undergrad research because that's
something that we care a lot about you
know yes obviously one of the parts of
education is the transmission of
knowledge but we care a lot about the
creation of new knowledge that's just as
important to us as as being part of
helping you acquire knowledge is helping
you create knowledge and that's what
research is all about
yeah somebody said geology in there
thank you whoever you are I feel good
you've made my day
appreciate that and it the nice thing
here is that I'm looking at all of these
these subjects philosophy Japanese
neuroscience biochemistry astronomy not
only can you study all of those things
but you can do research in all of those
things at Wash U so I am going to in as
much as I love watching this
continue to evolve I'm gonna click
forward so thank you for helping us know
a little bit more Oh who wants to study
toilet something that's you probably
could I mean that seems a little bit
more fluid mechanics so maybe in physics
but I'm sure we could find a way if
that's really what you're looking for
you can generate your own research ideas
okay um sorry let me get this moving
forward so just a quick a quick overview
with who we are in arts and sciences so
there are 70 plus majors across our 44
departments and programs so you have the
opportunity to study a lot of different
things from the humanities through to
the Natural Sciences and again research
is available across all of them we are a
research institution which is why we are
devoting one of these whole webinars to
undergraduate research and so the
faculty who you'll be learning from the
classroom are also themselves really
amazing scholars so just to pick a
couple of statistics there are eight
members of the National Academy of
Sciences just in our biology department
and seven of our faculty across
departments and anthropology in
philosophy and music have been
recognized as guggenheim fellows and
this is all recognizing excellence in
scholarship and original research so you
have the opportunity to work with and
learn from some really incredible
faculty scholars we want to support you
in getting connected to those research
opportunities and the undergrad research
office plays a huge role in that so
that's why you'll be hearing from and
talking to them over most of this
webinar but I also want to take the
chance to highlight our first-year
programs which are course based open for
first years only and a number of those
engage with research as a part of those
courses or prepare you for and connect
you to research opportunities that come
out of those courses so there's a
first-year program called phage hunters
in the biology department in which
students will isolate their very own
novel bacteriological phage in the in
the
all semester and then in the spring they
are doing some of the informatics work
tagging the genome so and they all will
present at our undergraduate research
symposium so that's pretty cool to do in
your first year there's another program
called mind brain behavior that is a
cognitive science program and students
take a seminar in their first year and
are then placed in a cognitive
neuroscience lab for independent
research in their sophomore year so we
like our first year programs because
they help you get connected to an
introduce to a lot of these cool
opportunities not just research but also
travel and internships and so if you
want to learn more about those the
Thursday webinar is going to be all
focused on those first year programs
they're not required but 85% of our
students last year chose to participate
in one of more one or more of these so
they're they're things that actually do
appeal across your your academic
interests service is something that's
also incredibly important to our
students half of our students tell us
they engage in community related work
while they're at Wash U and then while
we have lots of different majors some of
our academic interests are more common
than others pre-health is a particularly
popular one at Wash U and we've got a
great track record supporting our
pre-health students getting admitted to
med school so national average for
first-time applicants is 41% admission
so that's why the 80% statistic is on
our slide we're really proud of that and
a lot of the reasons our students are so
successful is that they have incredible
research opportunities not just on the
Arts and Sciences campus but with our
med school in the clinical research labs
as well so research is really
fundamental to a lot of of what we do
but we are more we are creative in other
ways as well creative writing is one of
our fastest-growing academic areas and
we've been recognized as a top college
for writers for the last couple years in
a row and so you have the opportunity to
indulge your creative side not just in
in scholarship and research but also in
in the creative arts so that is
something that
really want our students to oh I am
reminded that the first-year programs
webinar is not until the 22nd I thought
it was this Thursday so I gave you wrong
information but on your admitted
students page you will find all of the
right information so I can't be trusted
I'm sorry all right
so who are Arts and Sciences students I
just want to give you a little bit of a
sense I wish you could be on campus I
wish I could be on campus right now to
be welcoming you and talking to you in
person and I wish that you could have
the chance to meet other Wash U students
because I think that is truly the thing
that makes Wash U an incredible place to
spend four years of college it's about
the intellectual community and I talked
about how great and amazing our faculty
are but you will learn in college so
much from these students that you're in
classrooms within your dorms that you're
in lab groups with and so really being a
part of a pure intellectual community is
crucial to finding the right College
that that's going to be a great place
for your own growth so this is something
that I care a lot about as dean of the
college and I started this tradition to
get students to think about and express
what is they hope for out of college
what are they here for what do they want
to achieve and so our tradition is that
during New Student Orientation we hand
out these squares of fabric that you can
see here to all new students so before
they even start classes and we ask them
to write or draw what they hope for
themselves over the next four years and
then we stick them all together oh this
is the wall in my office that I now
haven't seen in the several weeks we've
been sheltering in place so we stick
them all together and so this one was
from the class of 2021 so our current
juniors and we bring it back at
graduation and people try and find what
they wrote before classes started and
see if they actually achieve their goals
but if you look at these that we've
collected over the last eight years you
get a really great sense of whose
students are so here are some of my
favorites you know our students are
really invested in creative
in creating new knowledge and coming up
with new ideas and so we see a lot of
that make discoveries start a new
business write a novel our students want
to contribute ideas to the body of human
knowledge our students do want to make a
difference in the world around them and
a lot of our students are trying to
figure out just what it is that they
want to take and move forward with into
their lives that will really be
fulfilling for them and so that that
research and discovery is not just about
the world around you it's it's also
about the world inside you and who you
are and who you want to become
we have people who like math jokes
changing me with respect to time tell me
over dull time is infinite so vertical
growth somebody who's hoping to achieve
a great deal someone else who writes a
different equation they hope their pen
will be equal to a sword I always say I
met a gun with greater than like pen is
mightier than the sword but that's not
the math person so whatever you want to
do some people come in with really
specific goals that are research related
so figure out how to help people with
severe allergies other people have
rather more open-ended goals some people
have multiple goals here's someone who
says I will be an articulate trilingual
entrepreneur who possesses integrity
tenacity and benevolence it's like that
that's great you go I will not get in
your way here's somebody who hopes that
their mind will be blown here somebody
whose hopes they get a job that they're
interested in and somebody who wants to
learn for the purpose of gaining
knowledge and then every year watching
students do have pretty decent senses of
humor I always wish that people maybe
took this a little more seriously but I
can't argue with with naps and food so
there are many things that you can
achieve for yourself over your time in
college and research is a great way to
set incredible goals for for
contributing and making your very own
discovery that that really leaves the
world a different place than when you
started so that is all I'm looking to do
to give you a bit of an overview so what
I'm gonna do from here is turn it over
to my colleagues and I will let them
introduce themselves and then I will go
away to get ready to teach my class also
over zoom and I hope you are having a
great time wherever you are and that you
are enjoying the inside of your house as
we all are and it's great to have the
chance to connect even remotely so
thanks so much for being here and I am
going to turn this over to Dean Kieffer
you
you
hello everyone I'm Dean joy Kieffer and
I'm very excited to be here today to
talk with you about undergraduate
research at Washington University
welcome we're excited that you are
admitted to our institution and we are
also excited to share with you some of
the wonderful things that we have to
offer you as part of undergraduate
research experiences here at Washington
University I'm the director of the
office of undergraduate research so I'm
gonna just move you through some some of
the ways in which we we we understand
undergraduate research here on this
campus we're going to have two Q&A
sessions where I really encourage you to
type your questions into the Q&A box we
have people gathering them we'll try to
answer as many as we can but we're going
to gather all those questions and create
an FAQ that's going to live on our you
are juiced LED you website we're also
going to post this recording of this
webinar should you want to come back and
look at something or show somebody else
and so we also have as part of this
experience some student spotlights since
we can't be together and we can't bring
students directly to you we can
certainly highlight through their
stories and pictures ways in which our
students really engage with the
undergraduate research experience here
on this campus but before we get there I
really just want to talk about what is
undergraduate research everybody thinks
that they kind of understand what this
is but really you know research is an
important aspect of an academic journey
in college is what I would say
and undergraduate research is by
definition faculty mentored we we have
you know many many faculty on our campus
who all conduct research and
undergraduate research is an experience
that they all welcome so regardless of
the discipline whether it be a lab based
discipline or in humanities and social
sciences in art in business their
research happens all over the campus and
all of our faculty conduct research so
the answer is yes you can do research
that wash you as an undergrad and it
needs to be faculty mentored and our
offices is really designed to help you
navigate that finding those those
faculty Mentors
I think another common thing that we
really want new students to understand
is that undergraduate research doesn't
just happen in the lab here we have this
fabulous picture of a student performing
their senior honors theses dance thesis
at one of our undergraduate research
symposium we held in the st. Louis Art
Museum we captured this fabulous picture
of that so research happens in all
fields of study in all disciplines so
really expanding your understanding of
what research is really creating new
knowledge in whatever way that that
discipline of study engages in inquiry
and the creation of new knowledge and
there's something here for everyone so
the next question I think we often get
is you know why should someone engage in
undergraduate research
really
I love the idea of undergraduate
research really bringing your academic
curriculum alive it is a way for you to
understand that the things you read in
textbooks one or two lines in in a
textbook really is you know someone's
life's work on a particular subject
right so it's a really great way for you
to understand and see experientially
what it is that your field of study or
fields of study that you're being
exposed to how do they really understand
how do they know what they know
right also it's really important way to
answer questions that maybe get sparked
in you as the results of attending class
and you you hear a professor say
something you get exposed to something
that you're like wow I didn't know that
was a thing this is a great way for you
to answer questions that maybe nobody's
asked yet or maybe nobody maybe those
questions have been asked but nobody
really knows anything about that yet I
love the story of a student of ours who
was in art history who used funds from
our office to go to the Sistine Chapel
and look at Michelangelo's painting of
the ceiling and her whole senior thesis
was about a reinterpretation of that
painting that married to Dante's Inferno
and her her faculty mentor professor
bill Wallace who is the world renown
scholar on Michelangelo said when he
introduced her talked at our research
symposium that her interpretation of
that painting caused him to re-evaluate
how
he was teaching the class and really
caused him to re-evaluate and rethink
arguments that you know had been very
discipline specific for a very long time
so there we have an undergraduate as a
senior creating new knowledge in the
field of art history
I think everyone understands especially
in this day and age where a lot of
institutions are really trying to
encourage undergraduate research
experiences or maybe your parents are
trying to encourage undergraduate
research experiences as a way to develop
skills and you know have this
competitive profile for whatever your
postgraduate plans hold for you and you
don't necessarily just need to be a
research scholar in order to develop
transferable skills as you'll see from
our student spotlights things modes of
inquiry and analysis things that you
know allow you to like professional
competencies personal ones like being
able to work in a team and collaborate
with others problem solving skills
decision-making skills all of these
essential skills that we know are really
important to the your advancement as a
undergraduate through your undergraduate
education and beyond
undergraduate research really does
provide all of those opportunities to
develop those skills well you've been
admitted into an institution that has an
office of undergraduate research that is
dedicated to facilitating this
experience for you we offer several
resources to help you advance along in
that journey our office has a wonderful
getting started section on our website
that really walks you through you know
understanding what undergraduate
searches all the way to finding a
research mentor and accessing our
funding program so we really like we
really love this start seek and share
idea that we are the place that you will
start we will be a place where you can
you know seek funding and find programs
and we are also a place that facilitates
sharing your research so understanding
that the office of undergraduate
research really is here to help you from
beginning to end turn into what I like
to call a fully actualized undergraduate
researcher where you've gotten this
intellectual spark we you've matched
with a faculty person who can help you
explore that and then our resources can
really propel you forward to into that
experience and then sharing your
knowledge and experiences with others so
you know I want to stop right here for a
few seconds to answer any questions that
you might re questions that you might
have going back sorry
trying to find the chat let me get it up
here doesn't seem to want let me chat
with my folks here one sec
how joy this is Dean Keefer let me just
jump in and I'll toss you a couple
questions
yeah I can't seem to get the chat box to
come up here thank you
we've had a few students ask you know if
they're a student in the social sciences
or the humanities or public policy if
they can do research and what that
research might look like absolutely
well yes if you are in the humanities
and Public Policy
there is absolutely research for you
when we have our student spotlights
you'll see Humanities Research is just
like the research I just described to
you from the art history student who
reinterpreted the ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel to you know creating a study and
executing a study that you know benefits
a community because understanding issues
that might you know they might face as a
community so really this is only as
limited as your imagination is I think
because if you have a question chances
are you can find someone who is doing
work in that area and those questions
once they get grounded in a discipline
then you will get connected with a
faculty person who can help you
understand what the mode of inquiry in
the social sciences or humanities looks
like to help you down that path
any other another question yeah so
another thing that came up was how much
time should a student expect to devote
to research and is it possible to be
involved with research while having
other Crooker extracurriculars maybe you
know studying abroad or working a job
how might this research fit with
pursuing a federal work-study job that
that kind of thing right so there are
lots of different arrangements for
conducting research one you can do
research for credits so that you build
research into your schedule just like a
course you you know you could research
for about ten hours a week for three
units of credit there are arrangements
where you could research as a part of as
a research assistant so perhaps the
faculty person hires you to collect or
analyze data that they are looking at
you can if your work study eligible have
those work-study funds applied to your
research endeavors so if you find a
faculty person who is willing to work
with you then you can work with Student
Financial Services to have your
work-study award applied to that
research position so there are lots of
different arrangements lots of place to
engage yes you can build it into your
schedule you can see it as you know a
co-curricular activity that you do in
addition to your academics there are
many different arrangements didn't
answer although also ten can a student
that started in research as a first year
student and are their first year
opportunities for research in different
disciplines including the humanities
well yes a student can get involved in
research as a first year student it
really just depends on the discipline
house
a student can't engage so in in
typically in the lab based environments
you have you don't need varied you don't
need any experience and a lab group will
bring you in they'll you know start you
at the bottom rung they'll teach you
some techniques you'll do that for a
while and you're sort of grow up in the
lab based environment so in those lab
based disciplines in the Natural
Sciences yes perhaps you could start
doing research as early as the first
year any humanities for example though
their mode of inquiry really encourages
the students who evolved their level of
understanding in the courses first
before they take on any kind of research
experience so in your first you know two
to three semesters as a humanities
student that you would probably be
taking classes you would be
understanding well here's how we ask our
questions here's how we answer our
questions here are some of our really
deep questions and you would be working
to kind of really understand the
discipline first and then evolve into
something like a research assistantship
that maybe then goes into you know
culminating project like a senior thesis
so in the humanities is just because you
don't start right away in something like
a lab assistant or in something like a
research assistant position doesn't mean
there isn't anything there for you it
means that the timing really varies by
discipline and we worked really hard on
the undergraduate research a website
that getting started tab to help you
understand what the research timeline
looks like for the various disciplines
of study so you see you'll see for the
Natural Sciences and mathematics a
timeline you'll see a timeline there for
the social sciences humanities and other
disciplines so
it really just depends on the discipline
it's easier in the Natural Sciences to
hit the ground sort of running with zero
experience or grounding in the
discipline and really kind of grow up in
the lab but in the humanities coursework
is the entre point first what percentage
of students conduct research at Wash U
well from our data we see from senior
exit surveys by the time
seniors exit we have about you know 57
almost 60% of students reporting that
they have engaged in some kind of
undergraduate research experience in the
arts and sciences it varies by school
but in arts and sciences by the time
someone is a senior and graduates about
about 57% of them could engage in some
kind of undergraduate research is it
possible to do research outside of
washio it is
we encourage lots of different
opportunities for students from our
website any of our funding programs we
do require that you are faculty mentored
by owashi faculty so if you want to
access any of the funds that are
available through our office then you
you need to be mentored by a faculty
person at Washington University but
there are a wide variety of programs
across the country and a wide variety of
disciplines that you could engage in
research experiences outside of Wash U
for example NSF research experience for
undergraduates or REU is a great
example of a funding program that really
solicits folks from other institutions
to come and have research experiences at
that institution as a way to also kind
of try out that institution for graduate
school or get connected to faculty that
you might work with in a postgraduate
way so yes there are opportunities to do
research outside of Washington
University the funded opportunities that
our office offers you can do research
outside of Washington University so
maybe you might be you know traveling
somewhere to access an archive or
whatnot but you do need to have your
faculty mentorship at Washington
University we have some more questions
here but we'll hold them for the final
Q&A okay thanks so much Dean human all
right well in the next section here I'm
going to talk about students in a wide
for a wide variety of experiences and
disciplines they'll also represent the
wide variety of funding programs that we
have available so that you can go you
can kind of see through the story of the
students you know how one engages in
undergraduate research at Washington
University you'll see in their stories
that they each sort of developed this
idea this what I was calling that spark
of imagination and inquiry and they they
transferred their passions for that line
of inquiry into knowledge and skills
that they used in their discipline but
that they also used in their life after
Washington University
you'll see that the stories and the
pathways are is a RS unique and buried
as we have as humans are as unique and
varied and that what they all have in
common though is that the undergraduate
research experience at Washington
University was a value add to their
educational experience so let's look at
a few of these students to get a sense
of what this is so here the first person
we have is KC
soar bellow she her major is
international and area studies and
anthropology she took advantage of the
summer undergraduate research award that
is offered through the office of
undergraduate research we call that the
Sarah this award gives you up to $4,000
for a 10-week research full-time
research experience faculty mentored
research experience in this summer so
this is a four thousand dollar stipend
or Awards that allows the student to
really be supported live and take
advantage of doing research full-time in
the summer when you're not in in courses
so in Casey's particular situation she
had mentors from both of her areas of
studies and she went to Uganda with her
anthropology faculty mentor to
understand
some behaviors that were really
impacting a community in Uganda and so
she really worked to collect data
analyze the data so that she could help
her faculty mentor
really understand the effective ways for
the community to adapt to their changing
needs and you can see here
I love KC's quote that you know in turn
interacting and working with the local
members of the community really
profoundly impacted her research
experience I think here is where we see
that research brings alive things that
when you just read about them in a
textbook or you just talk about them in
a classroom setting that is it's almost
like the the the the people are become
kind of disembodied right and then doing
research really brings that to life for
you
another student here Rory he has a major
in biology with on the neuroscience
track he's a minor in electrical
engineering so that's one of the
beautiful things about Washington
University is the sense that we have you
know different schools but there's a lot
of flexibility across the schools so you
don't have to just be tracked you can
study things and add things as your
interests evolve Rory took advantage of
our bio summer undergraduate research
fellow or the Wash U bio serf this
fellowship also gives $4,000 for a full
summer 10 to 12 week experience and
really you can see here from Rory that
it really enabled him to be at the edge
of inquiry but also try out research as
something is that something that he
really wanted to do and he you know was
able to be focused and now is pursuing
the you know physician scientist with
the MD ph.d pathway so that you know he
can continue down the role of combining
medicine
and research and you know I love what he
says about really a research experience
gave him these skill sets that are
transferable across you know
environments right this ability to
communicate in a concise way to develop
a proposal so that you can obtain
resources and support to collaborate in
large teams so this is a really great
example of what I was talking about
earlier that it's not just about being a
researcher your whole life it's about
doing something having an experience
that really develops strong skills as
well that are transferable regardless of
the environment here we have Annalise
who is a bio and Spanish major and she
took advantage of an early summer
research project our program that we
have called the u.s. our Summer Scholars
program so this program is specifically
for rising sophomores so somebody asked
about you know doing research as a first
year student and this this one really
supports that you know first summer
after college to really dig deep in a
research experience so that you can see
is is this a pathway for you the you
start program is really trying to help
people you know pursue a PhD
postgraduate science bio biological
research and they're really trying to
support you know students understanding
that this is this is what that pathway
is it's a great cohort building
experience and you know anybody who is
participating in any of our programs
also agrees to present their research at
our biannual research symposia so not
only are they getting these great
skills and community and their own
individual programs but they're also
getting these great experiences
presenting their research to a wide
audience here we have Victoria Collins
she's anthropology major and psychology
and brain sciences major she took
advantage of our summer undergraduate
research award and also went with a
faculty mentor to Uganda where she did a
lot of program analysis and the the
following summer used that research
experience that in in a completely
different environment in a nonprofit
architecture firm in Boston's and did
sort of impact announced and proposal
project design for them around
behavioral health care so you can see
that you know these are transferable
skills across environments but also
Victoria took advantage of our
publication opportunity that we offer
the undergraduate the Washington
University undergraduate research digest
which we published once a year and she
and Victoria had a feature article in
that publication so really having those
experiences and taking advantage of the
way that those experiences sort of
evolved for her and as her interest of
all evolved as well here we have Blake
he is this great combination of systems
engineering and physics
the office of undergraduate research
supports Arts & Sciences but we also
support all schools and all disciplines
and here you can see again that
flexibility playing out between
engineering and arts and sciences and
and lake really got on fire for
physics when he took physics of the
brain in his sophomore year and I loved
his quote he realized that there are so
many unanswered questions and and that
research for him has been a real source
of creative expression you know he was
able to use his experiences in his
multiple disciplines to really
understand his research questions from
multiple angles and he's really really
taking classes and having experiences
with professors or is what really
created that initial intellectual spark
for him and that can he continue to do
that and use his multiple disciplines to
solve problems that he could see from
multiple angles so that's another really
great thing about our flexibility across
schools and then Catherine she utilized
our office of undergraduate research
travel O'War conference travel award
which we offer up to $500 for students
to participate in discipline-specific
conferences once they are encouraged to
do so by their faculty mentor so here
Catherine participated in a the fall
2019 gerrant illogical Society of
America conference where she presented
her findings from her research in
psychology and brain sciences so our
conference travel award is a really also
great value add for you to have these
multiple opportunities not only for our
own undergraduate research symposium but
indiscipline specific symposia to
articulate to discipline specific
audiences but also
general audiences your findings and how
that sort of advances our understanding
of certain issues and topics and
problems that we face as a global
society so hopefully those student
spotlights bring to life to you the wide
variety of ways that students combine
their disciplines their passions in
academics to answer questions that
develop as they experience their
academics here at Washington University
and you know what I would say to any new
undergraduate is you know spend some
time really thinking about areas that
you care about you you don't have to do
research from the moment you step on
campus you haven't missed anything if
you wait and that some disciplines are
going to ask you to wait and there's
nothing wrong with that
but you can spend some time now before
you even you know come to campus getting
clear about what are your interests you
have questions that you you always
wondered about do you have classes that
you really want to take and staying open
to the idea that your intellectual spark
the thing that's going to spark your
undergraduate research experience
possibly is going to happen when you're
sitting in that classroom lecture and
and you you realize that this is the
thing that you didn't even know was a
thing and you're like oh that blows my
mind those moments will happen for you
as you stay open to learning which is
what really college is all about right
uh really honing your deep learning
right so explore your interests when you
come to campus you know get to know
professors and I know that can sound
really
daunting and I'm not talking about like
you know getting to know whether or not
they're cat or dog people are like
coffee or tea what I'm saying here is
you know go to the office hours ask
questions sit in the front rows of
lecture pay attention listen to that
little part of yourself that's like oh
that's so cool and then just go ask a
professor during office hours well how
did you get interest in this field of
study and let them tell you that story
um there's also a lot of really great
departmental lectures that happened all
over campus and a wide variety of
disciplines really low stakes you can go
and sit and listen see what research
really looks like in in that particular
area and then the u r dot was to the edu
website getting started tab is really
designed to help support you through
that process and then our office of
undergraduate research team is here to
answer any of your questions and really
guide you through that if you if you
need us as you as you get going so for a
couple more questions remember don't
even if I don't get to your questions
make sure you submit them to the QA
section here on zoom' so we're gonna
gather them all up and we're gonna try
to answer as many as we can and a FAQ
that we post on our website I am our
website is there at the bottom of the
screen you should go and you should
bookmark that sucker because it's a
wealth of information and we regularly
update it with a lot of opportunities
and and a lot of really great resources
so hit me doing human well so we've had
a number of questions that relate to
what are the different research
arrangements is research conducted for
credit is
conducted as a job for payment can it be
done for federal work-study or is it a
volunteer opportunity yes there are a
wide variety of arrangements this is one
of the faq is on our website yes the
answer is yes yes yes
research the only thing that you can't
do anymore
is volunteer used to be able to
volunteer but there that is not a policy
anymore so you can research for credit
your research for payment
you can have your work-study applied to
a research position you find the faculty
person you you make the connection and
your student financial services officer
can then you know arrange with that
faculty person to have your work-study
applied there you can research in the
summer full-time you can build research
into your schedule as a student and
research for credit as a class there's
our office doesn't set the kind of
research that you do so research for
credit is mediated through the various
departments research for payment is
mediated directly with the faculty
mentor that you find so our office is
not sort of like this central place that
you have to get okayed in order to do
research but our office is there to sort
of facilitate you and give you a
structure on how to find and connect
with faculty people and then there to
really support you once you get going
with funding and presentation and
publication opportunities alright so
there are a number of questions about
you know how do I find a faculty mentor
is research on the med campus possible
and you know what would the process of
getting started with that look like do I
get paired with a mentor okay Wow
this is on the URL that edu website
getting started tab when you navigate
there and you look at the side
navigation on the left
it really does walk you through the
process of getting started and engaging
right and so down a little ways on that
side navigation it is the the the button
is called finding a mentor and when you
click there you'll see that we tell you
what a faculty mentor is we show you
where to find them yes you can you can
find research mentors at the medical
campus it's the same process regardless
of the department or the discipline that
we've laid out there you really making
your list of five to seven people that
you've researched you that you've read
some of their works you've gotten
interested in their questions and you're
going to reach out to them via email to
set up a time to speak with them
hopefully we're all together so you
could go meet with them in person but if
not you could do some kind of you know
Skype or zoom video conference where you
could ask them about opportunities in
their lab or in their in their
discipline if it's a not lab and work
out how you might do research with them
and so yes there there are lists of bio
and med school faculty that you can look
at on that getting started tab we don't
match you because that's a you and the
faculty mentor relationship you have to
get interested in their questions and
you have to really you know talk with
them to see is this a person that I
would really like to work with but we
give you a system there and I've been
doing this job for a long time the
system that is there so scroll all the
way through the page because there are
several steps from how to
you make an informed contact from the
beginning to scheduling a time to talk
with them to how to follow up I've never
seen that system failed yet people
always say when we when when they hear
from us or from other students you know
you just sent some emails and and have
some conversations and then you know
you'll find someone to work with it
really is that simple and I haven't met
anyone who hasn't had that happen in my
you know 15 years of doing this job the
the issue is that you know it's not just
sending an email in the sense that hey
dr. so-and-so got any research there's a
professional way to do this and our
website really walks you through all the
steps are there opportunities for
interdisciplinary research or is it
possible to do research that falls
outside of my major yes there are
opportunities to do interdisciplinary
research as you saw from Casey's or
Bella's example at the beginning she was
a combination of international and area
studies and anthropology she was
mentored by by two faculty we've seen
you know dance students work with you
know robotics professors we've seen you
know and be mentored by a faculty dance
person in a robot Comp Sci faculty
person and the student was kind of the
connector between these two faculty
there's a wide variety of opportunities
and I really do mean it it is is only
limited by your imagination right so if
you have you develop an
interdisciplinary interest chances are
you're going to find faculty across
those fields that either you're going to
bring together to collaborate or you
will collaborate with them as your ideas
about and your questions evolve
so yes the answer is yes to all of those
questions is it possible for students to
present their work our students able to
publish or co-author yes as I said we do
symposia twice a year so we mandate that
if you participate in any if any of our
funding programs that you automatically
present at the next symposium so in the
summer if you were a summer Award
recipient then you would present your
research in the fall symposium in in
October usually right after the summer
and we offer publication opportunities
and many of our students instead of
publishing with us will be will will
gain authorship on papers with their
faculty Mentors
you know we also offer ethics workshops
so that you understand exactly what you
need to do in order to gain authorship
and how to understand authorship by
discipline because it does vary by
discipline at the rules so all all of
that to say that you know authorship is
all about contribution right so there
are many opportunities for you to
contribute to the forward momentum of a
faculty person's research agenda and
also then to engage in independent
research under faculty mentorship that
you know moves a discipline forward so
there's a yes there are opportunities
for you to do that if we can squeeze in
one final question and that's all we
have time for but there are a lot of
questions about the availability of
grant funding could you remind us just
quickly about the office of
undergraduate research award programs
certainly I will also direct you back to
the you are that was so that edu website
if and if you want to look at specifics
but around our funding and awards
programs you can look at the funding and
programs tab on that website I would
encourage you to look at that
so in quick overview we have several
awards that we offer for summer
undergraduate research experiences full
time the summer undergraduate research
award the bio bio surf program $4,000
for a 10-week research experience 2,500
for an experience that is less than 10
weeks so there's some flexibility about
that all of those programs require you
to have a Wash U faculty mentor so
really getting going in your discipline
and getting connected with faculty who
are teaching you who are guiding you
that is how that relationship evolves it
all starts in the classroom for a
first-year student
we also offer conference travel awards
once you get going
and you're encouraged to participate in
discipline-specific conferences like our
friend Catherine you know we have up to
$500 for you to offset the costs of
traveling to a discipline-specific
conference we have those are our funding
our main funding programs we also have
links on that funding and programs tab
to other Wash U programs other non Wash
U programs so there's a lot of
information on our website
anything else that I need to address I
think that's all we have time for for
now but we will put the FAQ on our
website that will answer any unanswered
question wonderful yeah so make sure you
go to this website you bookmark it you
visit it often thank you so much for
coming and listening to see the
presentation about the office of
undergraduate research at Washington
University I wish you all the best and
if your question wasn't answered make
sure you look at the FAQ that will post
up there we'll try to answer as many of
those questions as we can in an FAQ that
we'll post on our front page of our
website good luck with your decisions
and thank you so much for joining us
today
