Summer Research &
Innovation Program

*Glaxo Summer Research in Biology (3 weeks)

Available for Durham residential and online students!

Students accepted to the program must complete a research proposal and work with Dr. Mallory on that project during the summer. Students prepare for the summer program by doing background research and completing their research proposals in March-June. Guidelines for preparing these materials will be provided. By the end of the summer program, students give an oral presentation of their results and write a draft research paper. Students follow up in the fall by completing their research paper and, if appropriate, presenting their work at a professional conference.

• Getting Comfortable with Roadblocks: Students Tackle the Problem-Solving Inherent to Scientific Research During the Glaxo Summer Research Program (2022)

• [Coming Soon] Durham SRIP Showcase - Glaxo Summer Research in Biology (2023)

*How to do a Startup: An Experience in Entrepreneurship (2 weeks)

Available for Durham residential and online students!

This two-week program offers students the opportunity to learn how to do a startup venture under the direction of seasoned entrepreneurs. Through a series of entrepreneur-led workshops, students gain the practical knowledge and insight needed to start and scale a new venture. From value proposition design to building a business model, students explore the dynamics of the startup process in collaboration with entrepreneurs. Along the way, students develop the entrepreneurial mindset as they design their own nascent startup venture proposal. At its core, this summer program in entrepreneurship affords students a unique, behind-the-scenes experience of what it means to build and grow a startup. 

• Cultivating the Entrepreneurial Mindset: SRIP Experience in Entrepreneurship (2022)

• [Coming Soon] Durham SRIP Showcase - How to do a Startup: An Experience in Entrepreneurship (2023)

*Summer Research in Computer Science (3 weeks)

Available for Durham residential and online students!

Students accepted to the program must complete a research proposal and work with Keethan Kleiner at NCSSM. Any subject in Computer Science is acceptable. Students prepare for the summer program by doing background research and completing their research proposals in the spring. Guidelines for preparing these materials will be provided. The summer program includes a session for three weeks during which students work full-time on their projects. Students may work together on research, but each must submit their own application and include the names of each partner in their applications. By the end of the summer program, students give an oral presentation of their research and results.

• Building Confidence in Computer Science (2022)

• [Coming Soon] Durham SRIP Showcase - Summer Research in Computer Science (2022) 

Summer Research in Computational Science (3 weeks)

Available only for students accepted to Research in Computational Science academic year program!

This program is for students already in the academic year program "Research in Computational Science".  Students in this program will continue work begun in the spring semester.  Most but not all of the students in this program will travel to local universities;  some will work with remote mentors.

• Cultivating Independence: Summer Research in Computational Science Fosters Intellectual Curiosity and Builds Work Ethic (2022)

• [Coming Soon] Durham SRIP Showcase - Summer Research in Computational Science (2023)

*Summer Research in Engineering (2 weeks)

Available for Durham residential and online students!

Students will explore varied research topics in engineering. Students with an interest in biomedical engineering are especially encouraged to apply. Collaborative projects between students and departments are welcomed and encouraged. Examples of prior projects include using artificial intelligence algorithms to detect skin cancer, developing methods to discriminate between recyclables and non-recyclables, and determining the critical flicker fusion rate of the eye in response to different color LEDs. Students prepare for the summer program in the spring by choosing a specialty area and completing a research proposal (due mid March) for their project that includes background, a literature review, and a research design section. The summer program will include a session for two weeks in June during which students work full-time on their projects. Students will also engage with research labs in their area of interest at neighboring university campuses. At the conclusion of the research opportunity, students will be encouraged to communicate their research results both orally and in written format. 

Requirements: All students must have taken an Engineering course or J-term (either residential or online). Students with other experience in engineering and computer science and/or an interest in biology and/or medicine will be considered on a case-by-case basis. 

• [Coming Soon] Durham SRIP Showcase - Summer Research in Engineering (2023)

*Summer Research Experience (REX) in Computational Science (3 weeks)

Available for Durham residential and online students!

This three-week session will introduce students to the technologies, techniques, and tools of computational science and how to conduct scientific research using a computational approach. Students will participate in morning and afternoon webinars then complete structured and unstructured labs after each webinar. Participants will be invited and encouraged to complete a small research paper to be delivered before the beginning of the school year. 

• [Coming Soon] Durham SRIP Showcase - Summer Research Experience (REX) in Computational Science (2023)

*Summer Research in the Humanities (3 weeks)

Available for Durham residential and online students!

The goal of Summer Research is to introduce students to work inside and outside of archives and other sites of historical knowledge, allowing them to acquire a stronger and more sophisticated sense not only of textual but of material and cultural objects and artefacts.  This course is inseparably critical and creative: critical, for it teaches students to interrogate the very notion of an archive, and creative, for the interrogation will lead to their own production of knowledge in the form of a research proposal.  In the last ten years or so, the institutional limitations of archives have been valuably identified; however, the recognition that sites of knowledge are constructed does not imply the determination of what can be known.  For if it is the work of archivists to identify, catalog and systematize, and protect the objects in their collection, it is not their job to study exhaustively all the contents of their collection.  They might emphasize some objects at the expense of others, but they do not prevent the discovery of new meanings in the available items.  There is always the possibility for surprise, even delight (or horror) within the site in which documents and other objects are stored.  

The great opportunity, at once theoretical and practical, of the active investigation of the collections at UNC and Duke is to work with documents whose significance is not altogether clear as well as those whose significance seems peculiarly determined—so clear, in other words, that other meanings are obscured or occluded.  Our focus upon archival is, however, necessarily grounded in the historical worlds of the local.  In other words, the ground underneath the student’s feet, its deep histories and disruptions, will become the object of our study.  What is the relation between local knowledge and global experience?  How do economic and social transformations shape the more intimate, everyday forms of cultural practice and political desire in places seemingly far removed from such forces? 

Trips to the North Carolina Museums of Art, Natural History, and Science, as well as more informal excursions to historical sites such as Stagville Plantation, Hayti, and to renovated and ruined factories in and around Durham, will offer further practice in the difficult pleasures of reading diverse objects (including architecture) in their relation to built space.  Evenings will be spent reading, in preparation for the day’s adventures.  What will advene, however, cannot be foretold.   

• Critical independence and the art of questioning in NCSSM’s Summer Research in Humanities (2020)

• Inspiring a Love of Learning and Concept of Self: NCSSM’s Summer Research in Humanities (2022)

• [Coming Soon] Durham SRIP Showcase - Research in the Humanities (2023)

*Summer Research in Mathematics (3 weeks)

Available for Durham residential and online students!

This summer program is a three-week on-campus research program in mathematics. Students will form small groups to investigate a mathematical problem and communicate their findings to others. Daily activities will include whole group meetings, small group meetings, and individual work time. Students will also communicate their findings with the whole group on the last day of the program.

• Summer Research in Mathematics Enables Students to See a New Side of Math (2022)

• [Coming Soon] Durham SRIP Showcase - Summer Research in Mathematics (2023)

Summer Research in Physical Sciences: Chemistry (3 weeks)

Available for Durham residential students!

Students accepted to the program must complete a research proposal and work with Dr. Anglin at NCSSM. Students prepare for the summer program by doing background research and completing their research proposals in March-June. Guidelines for preparing these materials will be provided. The summer program includes 3 weeks in June during which students work full-time on their projects.  By the end of the summer program, students give an oral presentation of their results and write a draft research paper. Students follow up in the fall by completing their research paper and, if appropriate, presenting their work at a professional conference.

• Research in Chemistry Fosters Resilience, Collaboration and Independence While Students Tackle Graduate-Level Research Questions (2022)

• [Coming Soon] Durham SRIP Showcase - Summer Research in Physical Sciences: Chemistry (2023)

Summer Research in Physical Science: Physics (3 weeks)

Available for Durham residential students!

Students accepted to the program must complete a research proposal and work with Dr. Falvo on that project during the summer. Students prepare for the summer program by doing background research and completing their research proposals in March-June. Guidelines for preparing these materials will be provided. By the end of the summer program, students give an oral presentation of their results and write a draft research paper. Students follow up in the fall by completing their research paper and, if appropriate, presenting their work at a professional conference.

• Collaboration Empowers Summer Research in Physics Students to Delve into Complex, Interdisciplinary Research (2022)

• [Coming Soon] Durham SRIP Showcase - Summer Research in Physical Science: Physics (2023)