Before I even started college, I knew I wanted to be involved in research. To me, direct involvement in something as hands-on as research would be how I figured out if my major was the right pick while also contributing to the scientific community.
Undergrad research
In the summer of 2023, a handful of LAS students participated in the IHSI's Community-Academic Scholars Initiative, which matches undergraduates with academic mentors and community partners to address issues affecting our community. We caught up with two of them to discuss their experience.
Over the summer of 2023, Isabel Wojcik worked as a medical assistant at Christie Clinic in Champaign. She provides some thoughts on her experience.
MCB major Neha Arun shares her experiences working as an undergraduate researcher in Professor Collin Kieffer's lab in the Department of Microbiology, as well as a look at life outside the lab at the University of Illinois Urbana
Thomas Ballard and Tyeese Braslavsky are Class of 2022 graduates of political science. While at the university, they both completed research through their major; in September, they received the 2022 Senior Thesis Award for their work.
UIUC’s Humanities Research Institute (HRI) fosters interdisciplinary study in the humanities, arts, and social sciences.
Alice Lee, Tom Ballard, and Alex Wellman are serving as interns for the HRI-Mellon Legal Humanities Research Group, where faculty, graduate students, and undergrads explore research at the intersection of humanities and the law.
I am currently working with Tricia Thrasher (a PhD candidate in French) to study how virtual reality technology can be integrated in second language learning classrooms to reduce foreign language anxiety.
Connor Barnes and Zackary Landers are history majors working on completing research on topics including U.S. perceptions of Latin America through film and urban space in Black Chicago. We met with them to discuss their recent participation in the first History Showcase.
Evan Dray is a junior in LAS pursuing majors in chemistry and molecular & cellular biology. Dray was recently awarded the prestigious Goldwater scholarship—we caught up with him to learn more about the scholarship and his journey at U of I.