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Research Opportunities

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Ë®¹ûÅÉ College is a recognized leader in undergraduate research, scholarship and creative work across academic disciplines.

In addition to research projects that may be integral parts of coursework, students have opportunities to design semester-long independent research courses, conduct thesis projects, collaborate with faculty members on research, and participate in paid summer research internships at Ë®¹ûÅÉ and elsewhere.

Support for research and creative work comes from the college's annual budget and external grants. Summer research programs have also been supported by a variety of sources including The Duke Endowment, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities ICAN program, the Jesse Ball DuPont Foundation, and individual donors. As funding support has increased, the number of students participating in on campus research has grown.

Student does research in neuroscience lab
Student Research Opportunities & Funding

Faculty members integrate original research into the classroom and encourage students to join their research teams through the academic year or summer. Through this collaboration, students and faculty contribute to the growing body of knowledge in a wide variety of fields.

Prof. Mark Barsoum in lab pipetting into test tube
Faculty Research Opportunities & Funding

Whether designing apps for sports ranking or constructing bacterial computers, Ë®¹ûÅÉ faculty are solving important problems with their bodies of research. Over 50% of our faculty have published, showed or performed original work for a range of audiences beyond Ë®¹ûÅÉ.

Featured Funding Opportunities

Stories of Research at Ë®¹ûÅÉ

Ellie Rice with monarch butterfly on her nose
Biology
Ellie Rice '25

With support from the DRI and mentor Prof. Scott Villa, Rice investigated whether wing patterns influence monarch butterfly mate choice and behavior, research that has further implications into how monarch populations may diverge and become reproductively isolated.

a group of three white women smiling in a theater
Theatre
Olivia Harper ’23

Harper spent a week in Berlin attending various theatre productions and interviewing German dramaturgs as part of her thesis on Austrian playwright Elfriede Jelinek. 

a young white woman with curly reddish brown hair
Environmental Studies
Grace Rooker '24

Working on her senior capstone in the environmental studies department, Rooker spent the summer in Kenya collecting data on the ecological impact of small scale gold mining on stream ecosystems.

a young white male wears a straw hat while standing in front of an Egyptian pyramid and sphinx
History
Brody Bassett ’25

With support from Prof. Rebecca Joubin in the Arab Studies Department, Bassett immersed himself in the Arabic language while interning at the American Chamber of Commerce in Cairo, Egypt. 

an old church on an island surrounded by boats in a river
Sociology
Breila Fuller ’23

With mentorship from her thesis advisor in German Studies, Fuller dug into her independent research on memory during a week-long spring break trip to Berlin. Working in a German-Jewish archive, she investigated how we understand history through the context of personal archives.

two young women in a vet's lab office
Biology
Steffi Coates ’23

With mentorship from her German Studies advisor while in Berlin, Coates worked with a vet clinic where she observed a behavioral consult for an iguana, conducted radiographs on a turtle, spayed a ferret, and removed the eye of a guinea pig. 

a young Black woman smiling
Chemistry
Jacquelline Nyakunu ’26

With supervision from Prof. Cindy Hauser in the chemistry department, Nyakunu spent one summer conducting collaborative research on the effects of daily hookah smoking by identifying and quantifying the pyrazines in shisha using an EEPS machine. 

a young white woman stands in front of "US EPA" sign
Political Science
Cameron Unice ’27

Using DRI funding, Unice collaborated with Prof. Bersch to examine and compare how populist presidents exert control over administrative states, including a case study on former President Trump and the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Research Facilities

Ë®¹ûÅÉ Colleges provides state-of-the-art research facilities for student-faculty research in the sciences, social sciences and humanities with top of the line laboratories, instrumentation, student studio space and soundproof music spaces. Explore a sampling of our on-campus research facilities.