by Adarsh Patil on May 15, 2026 |

Call for Participation:

UR2PhD Tutorial: Strategies for Productively Engaging Undergraduate Students in Research

in Raleigh Convention Center in Raleigh, NC, USA
URL: https://cra.org/events/ur2phd-isca-tutorial/

UR2PhD Tutorial: Strategies for Productively Engaging Undergraduate Students in Research
Co-located with ISCA 2026
Raleigh, NC, USA
Sunday, June 28, 2026

Overview:

Do you want to engage undergraduate students to work on your research, but you don’t know how to do so productively? Do you worry about the time commitment of doing so? 

Working with undergraduate students can help move your research forward productively and can be an enjoyable experience for both you and the students with appropriate planning.  This tutorial will offer concrete strategies for recruiting and mentoring undergraduate researchers. 

Participants will be guided through how to design a well-scoped initial project that is appropriate for undergraduate students and that will advance the participants’ research.  Additionally, the tutorial will include a hands-on session in which the participants will develop onboarding materials that they can use repeatedly for new undergraduate students joining their research group over the course of a project’s duration. 

This tutorial can benefit everyone who works with undergraduate students on research or any long running technical project – graduate students, post-docs, faculty members, and industry professionals.  

Tentative Schedule:

  • 8:00 –  8:30:  Why work with undergraduate researchers? How is working with undergraduate students different from working with graduate students?
  • 8:30 – 10:00:  Hands-on Activity: Designing well-scoped research projects for undergraduates
  • 10:00 – 10:15: Break
  • 10:15 – 11:00: Hands-on Activity: Designing reusable, research onboarding materials
  • 11:00 -12:00: Strategies for mentoring/advising undergraduate researchers, including lots of Q&A

Organizers:

  • Kelly Shaw (Williams College)
  • Susan Rodger (Duke University)