Undergraduate Research Initiative
The Undergraduate Research Initiative (URI) encourages undergraduate students in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities to carry out research and other creative activities in collaboration with, or under the close supervision of, faculty members with relevant research expertise
What is the Undergraduate Research Initiative?
With the support of URI fund, the College aims to help undergraduate students develop or enhance research competencies, including formulating research questions, developing a theoretical framework, defining the scope of a project and writing a proposal, developing a literature review, collecting data, conducting analysis, and writing up results.
How can I use the URI for undergraduate research?
Support can be used for a variety of activities including the purchase of data or software, trips to archives, library cards, preparation of materials for presentation, etc. Under certain circumstances, it may be appropriate to award students funding for their work. Students must conduct research with or under the supervision of a faculty member; however, that faculty member need not be in the student’s home department, program or school.
How do I apply for URI support?
There are three funding cycles: April 15 for funding beginning Summer and Fall semesters; August 15 for funding beginning Fall semester; and November 15 for funding beginning Spring semester. Visit the URI application page and complete the online application form by the deadline for the cycle for which you are interested.
Past URI award recipients
Past Recipients
- Grace Kennedy and Katherine O’Brien
- Project: Operations Research on Neglected Tropical Diseases and their Interacting Factors in Kenya
- Mentor: Richard Wamai
- Esther Shen
- Project: Determinants of African American Economic Mobility in the Early 20th Century
- Mentor: Shariq Mohammed
- Noah Snell
- Project: Trans Community-Formed Knowledge Regarding Medical Transition on Social Media
- Mentor: Natalee Bauer
- Elizabeth Thorne
- Project: The Ethics of Religious Borrowing
- Mentor: Liz Bucar
- Amber Adelman
- Project: Producing Consumption: A Study of the Fast Fashion Industry that has Rapidly Altered Our Environment, Labor Practice Standards, and Consumption Patterns
- Mentor: Madhavi Venkatesan
- Jenia Brown
- Project: Black Lesbian Anthologies as a Rebellious Community Practice
- Mentor: Régine Jean-Charles
- Jhonatan Serrano
- Project: Economics in Practice: The Chocolate that Is Transforming the World
- Mentor: Madhavi Venkatesan
- Hayden Libershal
- Project: Agricultural Passes for California Farmworkers
- Mentor: Daniel Aldrich
- Major: Political Science
- Peng Xinghua
- Project: Synthetic Control Methods with Learned Spillover Structures
- Mentor: Jianfei Cao
- Major: Economics and Business Administration
- Jessica Richards
- Project: Boston Climate Progress Report: Section on Higher Education
- Mentor: Joan Fitzgerald
- Major: Politics, Philosophy, and Economics
- Alexander Beaudry
- Project: Community Policing in the United States: When It Works and When It Fails
- Mentor: Madhavi Venkatesan
- Major: Economics
- Arthur Langlois
- Project: Make our voices heard: Examining the Roots of Consistent Following of Public opinion on Climate Policy by American Lawmakers
- Mentor: Madhavi Venkatesan
- Major: Economics
- Hanna Nivar and Dylan Sweeney
- Project: Distribution of Responsibility in Mitigating the Refugee Crisis in Athens, Greece
- Mentor: Panagoula Diamanti- Karanou
- Kayla Collins, Rajvi Shah and Radika Barot
- Project: The California Jury Instruction Project: A Social Justice Question
- Mentor: Janet Randall
- Major: Kayla Collins – Political Science and International Affairs, Rajvi Shah – Political Science and Economics, Radika Barot – Economics and Mathmetics
- Savita Maharaj
- Project: Early Black Boston Curriculum Beta-Test
- Mentor: Nicole Aljoe
- Major: English
- Ryan Delano
- Project: Educational Accountability and American Federalism
- Mentor: John Portz
- Major: History and Philosophy
- Taber Skiba:
- Project: The Value of Water
- Mentor: Madhavi Venkatesan
- Major: Economics
- Trissha Sivalingam
- Project: Holocaust Consciousness: Jewish Refugees Shaping Religious Conflicts of the Global South
- Mentor: Bill Myles
- Major: Political Science
- Brittany Clottey
- Project: Marginal Bodies: Women of Color, Representation, and the Struggle Over Citizenship and Belonging, 1920-2020
- Mentor: Patricia Davis
- Major: Politics, Philosophy, and Economics
- Veronica Bettio
- Project: Starving for Freedom: An Account of the Palestinian Hunger Strike
- Mentor: Candace Delmas
- Major: Politics, Philosophy, and Economics
- Ava Gallo
- Project: Centering Community Voice in the Massachusetts Build Back Better Conversation
- Mentor: Becca Berkey
- Major: BA Environmental Studies and International Affairs, MS Security and Resilience Studies
- Group: Kristie Chan, Sheridan Lasher, Edith Olmstead, Benjamin Gould, Jack Hoover, Alisha Karuvannur-Sandhu, Emma Andrews
- Project: Ancient Stoic Techniques and Mental Health Today
- Mentor: Jacob Stump
- Majors: Explore (Kristie Chan), Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (Sheridan Lasher, Edith Olmstead, Benjamin Gould, Emma Andrews), Bioengineering (Jack Hoover), Biology/Philosophy (Alisha Karuvannur-Sandhu)
- Kaitlyn Lee
- Project: Dating at a Distance: Navigating Sexual and Romantic Relationships and Emotional Intimacy during the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Mentor: Linda Blum
- Major: Sociology
- Liz Mariluz
- Project: BRCA Communities In the Pandemic: Exploring the Role of Online Peer Support
- Mentor: Linda Blum
- Major: Sociology
- Kayla Vestergaard
- Project: Boston’s Green New Deal, Power Dynamics, and Justice
- Mentor: Daniel Faber
- Major: Environmental Studies/International Affairs
- Jacob Davis
- Project: Federalism and Murder in the British Leeward Islands, 1680-1720
- Mentor: Chris Parsons
- Major: History
- Erin Cutroneo
- Project: Legitimizing Disposition
- Mentor: Liza Weinstein
- Major: Cultural Anthropology/ International Affairs
- Brittany Mendez
- Project: American Educators Need an Updated Civil War Documentary – A Critique of Ken Burns’s The Civil War
- Mentor: Cameron Blevins
- Major: Politics, Philosophy, and Economics
- Larissa Morikawa
- Project: Post-Disaster Assessment: 2018 Hokkaido Eastern Iburi Earthquake: Studying Evacuation Behaviors and Patterns
- Mentor: Daniel Aldrich
- Valentina Muñoz Ascencio
- Project: Women’s Citizenship in the Arab Region
- Mentor: Denis Sullivan
- Major: Political Science and International Affairs
- Laura Packard
- Project: The Literary Adpocalypse: Understanding Advertisers’ Target Market in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals.
- Mentor: Ryan Cordell
- Major: English
- Caroline Smith
- Project: “Uncovering the Role of Female Printers in Early Modern England.”
- Mentor: Erika Boeckeler
- Major: English
- Katrina Haase
- Project: “Political Implications of US Cultural Diplomacy in Cuba.”
- Mentor: José Buscaglia
- Major: International Affairs
- Connor Hamill
- Project: “Music in the Text: What Music Can Reveal about Northeastern’s Only Medieval Manuscript.”
- Mentor: Erika Boeckeler
- Major: Political Science
- Morgan Hines
- Project: “Representations of Health, Occupation, and Location in Early African-American Slave Narratives.”
- Mentor: Nicole Aljoe
- Major: Biology and English
- John (Jack) Lovett
- Project: “Backlash in Boston: Louise Day Hicks and Urban White Ethnic Conservatism in the North.”
- Mentor: Gretchen Heefner
- Major: History and Political Science
- Jackson Reimer
- Project: “Perceptions of Medication-Assisted Treatment: Evidence from the r/Opiates Forum.”
- Mentor: Angela Kilby
- Major: Political Science, Philosophy, and Economics
- Meghan Jones
- Project: “Medieval Music in Northeastern University’s Dragon Prayer Book
- Mentor: Erika Boeckeler
- Major: History
- Neiha Lasharie
- Project: The Mediterranean Migrant Crisis and Sex Trafficking Policy in the European Union
- Mentor: Julie Gary
- Major: Political Science/International Affairs
- Laura Packard
- Project: Medieval Music in Northeastern University’s Dragon Prayer Book
- Mentor: Erika Boeckeler
- Major: English
- Laura Packard
- Project: Accessible Archives: Digitizing Northeastern’s Only Medieval Manuscript
- Mentor: Erika Boeckeler
- Major: English
- Irem Girmen
- Project: Looking for our Neighbors: An Evaluation Study of the Relationship between Northeastern University and the Roxbury Community
- Mentor: Len Albright
- Major: International Affairs
- Taylor Holland
- Project: Lessons From a Year of Activism: Reflecting on the Rhodes Must Fall Student Movement
- Mentor: Liza Weinstein
- Major: International Affairs and History
- Taryn Koury
- Project: Emotional and Behavioral Effects of Stress on Correctional Officers
- Mentor: Natasha Frost
- Major: Criminal Justice
- Alexis Bond
- Project: Objects as Texts: The Archival Search for Inscribed Objects from 1500-1700
- Mentor: Erika Boeckeler
- Major: English
- Kimberly Dacorogna
- Project: Thoreau Drawings Project
- Mentor: Kathleen Kelly
- Major: English
- Jane Rudy
- Project: Examining the ICTY to Evaluate Criticisms of Anti-Serb Bias
- Mentor: Philip D’Agati
- Major: Political Science and International Affairs
- Madeline Seibert
- Project: Pre-Consumer Food Supply Chain Food Waste in China: Current Situation and Potential Solutions
- Mentor: Chris Bosso
- Major: International Affairs and Environmental Science
- Anna Smith
- Project: Accessible Archives: Digitizing Northeastern’s Only Medieval Manuscript
- Mentor: Erika Boeckeler
- Major: English/Graphic and Information Design
- Nolan Tesis
- Project: Behind The Veil: Uncovering the History of Black Gay Literature
- Mentor: Nicole Aljoe
- Major: English
- Pavitra Chari
- Project: Small Technology in Big Countries
- Mentor: Kirsten Rodine-Hardy
- Major: Political Science/Economics
- Pavitra Chari
- Project: Small Technology in Big Countries
- Mentor: Kirsten Rodine-Hardy
- Major: Political Science/Economics
- Brenna Murdock
- Project: Coming Home, Staying Home: An Analysis of the Effect of Immigration on Community Levels of Recidivism
- Mentor: Jacob Stowell
- Major: Criminal Justice
- Elena Chace
- Project: Association of Discrimination-Related Trauma with Suicide Risk Among Transgendered Adults
- Mentor: Gia Barboza
- Major: Human Services and Criminal Justice
- Bailey Kilkuskie
- Project: Sexual Assault on Boston Area Campuses: Crime Rates and Student Perceptions
- Mentor: Jacob Stowell
- Major: Criminal Justice
- Farhana Hussain
- Project: Between Scylla and Charybdis: Dilemmas of Instituting a National Guard in Iraq
- Mentor: Denis Sullivan
- Major: International Affairs
- Sneha Pandya
- Project: Mapping Trends in Indian-American Literatures
- Mentor: Bonnie TuSmith
- Major: English
- Nicholas D’Amore
- Project: “A pencil is the best of eyes”: Thoreau’s Drawings”
- Mentor: Kathleen Kelly
- Major: English
- Haley Emerson
- Project: Plain English Jury Instruction Project: MTurk Study, Final Phase
- Mentor: Janet Randall
- Major: History
- Morgan Adderley
- Project: Representations of the Indigenous Peoples of the Caribbean
- Mentor: Nicole Aljoe
- Major: International Affairs
- Alison Campbell
- Project: The Politics of Memory and Ethics of Representation in Post-Genocide Rwanda
- Mentor: Natalie Bormann
- Major: Political Science and International Affairs
- Maisam A. Alahmed
- Project: Landmine Victim Assistance
- Mentor: Denise Garcia
- Major: International Affairs
- Gemma Bonfiglioli
- Project: Peer-to-Peer Cross-Cultural Project-Based Community Engagement
- Mentor: Lori Gardinier
- Major: International Affairs and Human Services
- Pavel Zubov
-
- Project: Africa Made in China
- Mentor: Nina Sylvanus
- Major: International Affairs
- Joanne Afornalli
- Project: Our Marathon
- Mentor: Ryan Cordell
- Major: English
- Alison Campbell
- Project: The Road to Opportunities: Creating Horizontal and Vertical Pathways through Partnerships for Disconnected Youth
- Mentor: Gia Barboza
- Major: Political Science and International Affairs
- Alana Dore
- Project: Plain English Jury Instruction Project MTURK Study
- Mentor: Janet Randall
- Major: English and Linguistics
- Emily Barton
- Project: What is Neurodiversity? Exploring How an Online Discourse Counters Stigma
- Mentor: Linda Blum
- Major: Sociology and Cultural Anthropology
- Abdul Hafiz
- Project: Hausa Diaspora in West Africa
- Mentor: William Miles
- Major: International Affairs and Political Science