Vanderbilt Undergraduate Summer Research Program
The Vanderbilt Undergraduate Summer Research Program is pretty self-explanatory….it is a summer research program for undergraduates at Vanderbilt! Okay, but really…it is a program that students apply to (usually for the summer after junior year, but sometimes after sophomore year) that allows them to do research in any field (to apply, you submit your project idea to a committee) with a professor or faculty member at Vanderbilt. A stipend is provided for the student so that they can afford housing and food during the summer. It is a great opportunity for students to be exposed to real 40+ hours/week research and provide insight into their future career interests.
Projects for the program range throughout the College of Arts & Science and Engineering school from film studies, human and organizational development and political science to psychology, physics, and biology with previous titles such as “Exploring Phospholipid selection by Phospholipid Flippases in Yeast” to “Voices from Our America: Young Panamanians of West Indian Descent” to The U.S.-Russia Rivalry and Foreign Policy Opinions.” My project is called “Diversity of Amyloid Structure.”
This summer, I will be participating in VUSRP, doing structural biology research in the Lab of Dr. Gerald Stubbs. I will be working 9-5pm (and whatever I need to do after that each day) and maybe even going on a trip to Chicago or California to experience a very important aspect of our research, which requires the use of a synchrotron. I am extremely excited because it is a chance to really do research in a real-life situation without the distractions of the academic year (classes, work, on-campus extracurriculars, etc…)
Other summer research opportunities exist at Vanderbilt and elsewhere and beyond! (You just have to go looking for them!)