OUR Weekly Research Mentors: September 23

First Year FURF Student Applications

The First-Year Fralin Undergraduate Research Fellowship (FY-FURF) Program will provide first-year students—who are new to research—with authentic research experiences in their chosen discipline, under the direct mentorship of a faculty member. Students from all majors are encouraged to apply.

• More information can be found on the FY-FURF information webpage.
• Applications can be submitted through the FY-FURF application form.
• Applications are due October 30, 2024 at 5:00 p.m.

Please encourage first year students to apply.

Undergraduate Research Faculty Grant Program

Faculty grant program is now available to scale undergraduate research! The Undergraduate Research Faculty Grant Program will provide a handful of grants of up to $10,000 to individual faculty, teams of faculty, or departments, to facilitate the development or support of novel programs that aim to scale and increase access to undergraduate research opportunities for VT students.

• Proposals are due November 4 at 8:00 p.m.
• More information available on OUR website.

Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference for Undergraduate Scholarship

The Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference for Undergraduate Scholarship (MARCUS) is a presentation venue for undergraduate scholarship in all disciplines.

Date: Saturday, November 2, 2024
Location: Randolf College, Lynchburg Virginia
Deadline: Early Bird Registration is due Monday, September 30, 2024 at 5:00 p.m.
Website: Randolph College

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program

The purpose of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is to help ensure the quality, vitality, and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. The five-year fellowship provides three years of financial support inclusive of an annual stipend of $37,000. More information can be found on the Graduate Research Fellowship Program webpage.

NURVa Mentorship Opportunity

The Virginia Academy of Sciences is seeking to help students through providing an outreach program in which mentors recruited from the Commonwealth’s colleges, universities, and research centers work long-term with students in high school classrooms on a research project of local interest.  These mentorships are individually designed between prospective mentors and middle/high school instructors for the needs of their specific class, and mentoring may be done both virtually and in-person.  

If you might be interested in serving as a mentor in this project, please fill out the NURVa interest form.

OUR Presentation Requests

Want to have representatives from the Office of Undergraduate Research present to your class or student group? Fill out the OUR presentation request form with two weeks’ notice, and we’ll have a representative ready to discuss our services, how to start research, and how to find funding opportunities.

Problem & Project Based Learning Institutes

The Academy for Experiential Learning (AEL) & CETL are offering two hybrid PBL Institutes - Project-based AND Problem-based.

Both two-day institutes will host faculty participants in person at Gilbert Street with lunch included. Coaching support will be two-fold, with our partner institutions Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Project-Based) and University of Delaware (Problem-Based) attending virtually and staff from the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) and the Academy for Experiential Learning (AEL) supporting in person.

Both institutes will take place on Thursday, October 17 and Thursday, October 24 from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Space is limited for these institutes with a cap of 20 participants from the Project-Based Institute and 10 participants for the Problem-Based Institute.

More information on how to register can be found on the Project-Based Learning Institute registration form and the Problem-Based Learning Institute registration form.