For Students
Looking for an opportunity to become involved in research or creative activity?
Welcome to the IU Bloomington website for Undergraduate Research & Creative Activity (UR&CA). This website is sponsored by the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education (OVPUE), and we’re delighted that you are considering engagement in a research or creative project.
You are likely to have many questions, the first of which is: What’s in It for Me?
We’ve tried to anticipate most of these, and you’ll find our answers here.
At IU Bloomington there are numerous programs and departmental opportunities for undergraduate research and creative activity.To help you get started, we’ve listed contact information for many of these here.
Should you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us. You can reach us by email at urca@indiana.edu.
Cox Research Scholar Dominique McGee and Professor of Law Kevin Brown
A trip to Ghana with 17 other IU students was a life-changing experience for Dominique McGee, who afterwards changed her major to a double focus on international studies and French. McGee has assisted Professor Brown with a study comparing the situation of African Americans in the United States with the “untouchable” caste in India and collaborated on a paper about the issues facing affirmative action and university admissions with a growing presence of African immigrants and biracial students in the minority student population. Says Brown of his mentee, “Someone like her could become Secretary of State. It’s my job to make sure she gets the right experience and is connected with the right people as she progresses.”
Cox Research Scholar Rebecca Rice and Distinguished Professor of Biology Ellen Ketterson
To say that Rebecca Rice has been involved in research that is really just for the birds would seem to trivialize it. But it really is for the birds, and it is extremely important research. In Distinguished Professor Ellen Ketterson’s lab, Rice has studied immune function, disease resistance, and evolutionary dominance behavior in juncos. She’s netted birds on misty mornings and observed the patterns of dominance among two populations of juncos in the aviary of IU’s Kent Farm Bird Observatory. “Becky is quick, and she is fearless,” says Ketterson. “I expect she will graduate with honors. She will have published scientific papers as an undergraduate. What I expect from her is growth, competence, achievement, and recognition, and the ability to pass those all along.”
Cox Research Scholar Jacob Fisk and Professor of Theatre and Drama Fred Duer
Sophomore Jacob Fisk is building a brilliant future behind the scenes, brick by Styrofoam brick. Fisk helps make entire dramatic worlds come to life on the stage, working 8 to 10 hours a week in the scene shop of the Lee Norvelle Theatre and Drama Center. The Fishers, Indiana, native is a double major in Telecommunications and Theatre and Drama, learning about lighting, scenic design, technical direction, and production, in the dual realms of film and stage. For Duer, the experience has been a reaffirmation of his impulse to leave his job doing scenic design for film and television for academia. “For me, seeing someone’s face when they’ve learned . . . I love that coming back to me,” he says.