Undergraduate Research
BSI funds undergraduates to work as part of CU Boulder faculty research teams. These students are mentored by faculty, post-docs, and graduate students.
Mentors gain professional rewards from training the next generation of scientists and engineers. As students are immersed in their projects, they are socialized into the culture of scientific research. They absorb the ethics and practices of the discipline, and they learn the laboratory methods and skills necessary to carry out research. Undergraduates apply what they have learned in the classroom to real-world problems. They have (perhaps for the first time) the opportunity to ask new questions, solve unsolved problems, or develop new devices or processes.
Students gain important insight into the kinds of careers they want to pursue, and mentors play a key role by giving feedback and providing guidance. The undergraduate research experience often recruits students to a science or engineering research career, sometimes for students who might not have envisioned their future in the field. Conversely, students who were once convinced they wanted to pursue a research career may determine that research is not for them. Bottom line: research experience allows undergraduates to make better-informed academic/career choices. (Adapted from https://www.cur.org/projects_and_services/usrp/value/)
Join us in this goal by sponsoring an undergraduate researcher through the BSI Scholars Program. And learn how to broaden the participation of who conducts research by employing these inclusive strategies.
CUREs - Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences
CU Boulder Faculty are integrating authentic research into the undergraduate curriculum, developing courses known as CUREs. BSI helped catalyze and support initial CURE efforts on campus with help from an HHMI grant. The University’s College of Arts & Sciences is now supporting these CUREs and expanding to provide even more CUREs in a number of disciplines.
BSI’s catalytic support includes CUREs in the MCD Biology and Integrative Physiology Departments, listed below:
MCDB 2171 is a laboratory course where students participate in a project related to the research of MCDB Professor Dr. Tin Tin Su. With the guidance of their instructor Dr. Pamela Harvey, students are working to identify novel chemotherapeutics that produce additive or synergistic effects with radiation, using fruit flies as the model organism.
MCDB 1171 is a laboratory course where students participate in a project related to the research of MCDB Professor Dr. Corrie Detweiler. With the guidance of their instructor Dr. Pamela Harvey, students are working to identify novel antibiotics by screening compounds from a library of Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs in bacteria.
IPHY 1181 is a laboratory course where students participate in a research project related to the research of IPHY Professor Dr. Christopher Lowry. The course integrates microbiology, the microbiome of the built environment (MoBE), the human microbiome, immunology, and cell biology topics into novel student research projects.
Designed for beginning biology students, these courses have entirely replaced the more traditional introductory MCDB laboratory course.
For additional information about CUREs in the College of Arts & Sciences, including a more comprehensive list, visit https://www.colorado.edu/research/cure/
