Types of Appropriate Undergraduate Research

Mentors are the faculty or staff member that is the on-site supervisor for students, and will work with the student to establish clear expectations for the position. Although students may reasonably be asked to do some clerical work, the emphasis should be on meaningful research or community work that will give the students an educational experience. 

Students may assist with faculty research outside of the Immersive Scholars program, Emerging Scholars, or BEST. Mentors should touch base with students on a regular basis to oversee the work the students are doing, troubleshoot problems, and provide feedback.

Immersive Scholars

Manning School of Business

Business: A student works mornings at the Innovation Hub, UML’s business incubator, helping with social media marketing. Student workers also attend iHub workshops and mingle with young entrepreneurs. 

Business: A student assisted with research on the effects of yoga on bone health in women, gaining valuable marketing experience by helping to recruit study participants and designing the website where they logged their activity.

Zuckerberg College of Health Sciences

Nursing: A student chose to immerse herself in the culture of Spain through the honors study abroad program in San Sebastian.

Nursing: A student assisted with research on the effects of yoga on bone health in women, learning how to set up the study and use the machines for weekly testing.

Francis College of Engineering

Mechanical Engineering: A student helps to design a self-healing outer shell with a new plastic for a vessel to carry astronauts into deep space.

Mechanical Engineering: Two students are worked over the summer at the Lowell Center for Space Science and Technology on SPACE HAUC, helping to design a CubeSat satellite that can take pictures of the sun. 

Electrical and Computer Engineering: A student chose to immerse himself in the culture of Spain through the honors study abroad program in San Sebastian.

Biomedical Engineering: A student assists in coming up with standards for the FDA to use when approving generic versions of long-acting injectable drugs.

College of Fine Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Political science: A student helped to process firearms licenses in the licensing unit of the Boston Police, check out other units and listen in when elected officials visit. 

Psychology: A student works afternoons at the Innovation Hub, UML’s business incubator, attends iHub workshops and mingles with young entrepreneurs.

Kennedy College of Sciences

Biology: A student studied abroad and did research in Peru over spring semester. He studied Spanish, tropical ecology and conservation science in the Andes, then mapped sources of water pollution in the Amazon watershed. 

Math: A student created her own community placement with help from two service-learning coordinators and worked for the Lowell public schools over the summer, teaching summer camps in robotics, circuitry and computer coding for girls and assembling science kits for teachers that included live crayfish.

Emerging Scholars

The Emerging Scholars Program provides students with a unique year-long opportunity to apply the theoretical knowledge gained from courses at UMass Lowell to a faculty member's on-going research. The Center for Women & Work takes pleasure in sponsoring innovative projects within an array of disciplines. 

Past Emerging Scholars Projects