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Twenty-five YOU’RE@CU Undergraduate Research Students will present their work in a poster session from 5-6 p.m. on April 29 in the Engineering Center lobby.

This event is open to graduate and postdoctoral mentors, faculty sponsors, interested faculty, students and guests as a way to celebrate the work done during the semester. Topics presented this year include 3D printing soft materials, exploring dynamic insulation methods in buildings, and investigating indoor air quality from cooking stoves.

The session is also a great opportunity for faculty and students to learn about the program and participate next year. Food will be provided.

The Your Own Undergraduate Research Experience at CU program links undergraduate students with mentors on a research project. Undergraduate students typically commit to 3-5 project hours a week in the lab, as well as a one-credit-hour course on research practices. During the program, they create their own research hypothesis, culminating in a paper and this poster session.

Graduate students in the program get help in the lab and an opportunity to gain leadership experience. They also attend a workshop on mentoring, specifically looking at how to integrate an undergraduate into the lab environment.

Beth Myers, the director of analytics, assessment and accreditation at the college, said the program was a great opportunity for undergraduates to learn the necessary skills to be effective researchers. 

“One of the amazing outcomes of the program is the numerous students that go on to earn positions with NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates programs across the nation or CEAS Discovery Learning Apprenticeships locally,” she said. “This program helps undergraduate students learn why research is such an important part of what we do at an institution like CU and helps them understand what a career in research may entail.”

The program was initially funded by Associate Professor Virginia Ferguson through her NSF CAREER Award in partnership with the BOLD Center, based on the belief that research experiences can improve retention in engineering and motivate underrepresented students to undertake graduate studies.

Undergraduate applicants to the program must be engineering majors in good academic standing. Graduate applicants should be in the second year of study or later and are expected to meet with their mentee each week.