Undergraduate Research

The purpose of our university is not the acquisition of knowledge, but the search for deeper knowing. Rather than imagine your education as downloading information or facts, reimagine your education as a process of seeking, questioning, probing, arguing, and creating. The primary responsibilities of faculty are to research, teach, and guide students. The primary responsibilities of students are to learn how to learn and to continue this quest for the rest of their lives. Faculty are primarily involved in the search for and creation of new knowledge, but faculty invite students to join with them to learn methods and approaches. After engaging in research with faculty supervision, students may dream up their own questions and create their own projects. In these ways, students chart their own paths toward original questions and deeper knowing. To find out ways that you can participate in undergraduate research, please refer to the following chart.

Explore Methods

Students explore research methods through an introductory course to a field of knowledge (for example, ENGL-090, FMST-100, JUPS-202, PSYC-002, or SOCI-201)

Join a Project

Students join with faculty in a research project, serving as research assistants via GUROP.

Start your Own

Students propose their own original research projects, seeking summer fellowship funding via Davis, Kalorama, Raines, Andretta, GUROP, etc.

Present your Findings

Students bring back their summer research and develop this material into a thesis, capstone, or independent project in the senior year. Students present their research via on-campus symposia (including the College Academic Council Research Colloquium in the spring) and off-campus conferences (supported by PURPAS grants).

Expand on the Experience

Students use their undergraduate research projects as stepping stones to further research, creative projects, fellowships, jobs, graduate study, public service, etc.

Keep Asking Questions

Continue to ask questions and pursue deeper knowing as key activities in lives of purpose.

Estefania Acosta (C’23) is conducting research on Colombia for States and Institutions of Governance in Latin America (SIGLA), a multilingual database on legal and political institutions in Latin America. This database is one of the few that provides systematic and clear information on Latin American government, laws, or institutions, which Acosta says has led to challenges as an RA but also underscores the importance of the research.

After Dinner Stargazing: Rodrigo, Andrii, Juan Pablo, Mariana, Fr. Collins & his telescope, Mailí, Kenzie, Jess, Colleen

Figge Fellows Research Program Welcomes Seven New Undergraduate Students

October 6th, 2021

The Figge Fellowship Program, led by Drew Christiansen, S.J., Ph.D., and David J. Collins, S.J., Ph.D., recently announced its new cohort of fellows. This fellowship will allow the group of seven undergraduates to pursue research at the intersection of religion and issues of social, cultural and historic importance.

Junior Creates Organization to Advocate for More Accessible Practices in High School Debates

July 26th, 2021

Alanna Cronk ( C ’ 23 ) started the organization 1AC – ACCESSIBILITY ( 1AC ), which seeks to make high school debates more accessible to those with disabilities , in t…

Bansal Lab Finds COVID-19 Transmission, Variant Risk Higher in Clusters of Unvaccinated U.S. Counties

July 15th, 2021

A team of alumni, student and faculty researchers in the Bansal Lab is tracking COVID-19 vaccination in the United States, identifying five clusters of southeastern U.S. counties with high populations and lower-than-expected vaccination rates.

Royden B. Davis Fellow Justin Goldstein Conducting Research to Optimize Question Answering Results

June 21st, 2021

Computer science major Justin Goldstein (C’24) was selected as one of this year’s Royden B. Davis Fellows. The sophomore will use this fellowship to fund his summer research on passage retrieval for question answering (QA) at Georgetown’s InfoSense Lab.