Research Programs for Students

For the 2005 - 2006 academic year a total of 187 applications from 131 PUC students were submitted for the programs sponsored by the Student Research Office. 133 grants and awards were given to students from the different programs, totaling up to slightly over $61,000. Some students received multiple awards, such as a grant to purchase their equipment for the research project, and then awards to present their research at a conference or competition.

URGP: Undergraduate Research Grant Program:

A grant program to provide funds, up to $750 per student, to undergraduate students to do research at PUC along with PUC faculty members, open to all academic fields. This program has been running at PUC since the fall of 1998, moving from its origin in the school of Engineering, Math and Science to a campus wide program. By the 2005 - 2006 academic year 33% of the awards were received by students outside the school of EMS. The number of applications, requested funding, and awarded funding has increased through the years. For the 2005-2006 academic year 109 students applied for grants, with 87 students receiving grants totaling slightly over $30,000.

SFRCA: Student - Faculty Research Collaboration Award

This award is a new initiative for the Student Research Office open to all academic fields. The purpose of the award is to encourage collaboration in research between faculty and students by helping with travel funds for students who are participating in research.

Awards of up to $300 are available to students when they travel with their faculty mentor to a conference, symposium, or competition to give a presentation of their research. Also students may receive up to $1000 for travel expenses if they are collaborating on a research project with a PUC faculty mentor away from PUC. This award is to help encourage students to work with PUC faculty at other universities during the summer or at off campus locations, such as a National Laboratory, during the academic year.

For the 2005 - 2006 academic year 28 students have received awards for over $6,000 to travel to present their research or travel with faculty for research opportunities. This year students have traveled to Stanford and Venezuela to pursue research programs with their faculty mentors.

LSAMP: Louis Stokes Alliance Minority Program:

LSAMP is a NSF sponsored program designed to encourage undergraduate students to do research in the STEM programs: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. The students receive stipends to do research in the spring and summer semesters. Purdue University Calumet is presently ending the third year of a five year program that has an alliance of 5 Indiana Universities. Typically, 10 students work on projects during the spring semester and 15 during the summer, receiving $1,500 or $2,000, respectively. Besides their research work with their mentors, LSAMP students meet to discuss various topics of research, give a presentation of their work at the Purdue University Calumet Student Research Day and hand in a final paper to NSF. Each year several students present their work at the Indiana LSAMP conference. For the 2005 - 2006 Indiana LSAMP conference, three PUC students presented their work.

USRA: Undergraduate Student Research Award

The USRA is a new initiative from the Student Research Office. Ten awards of $300 each are presented to undergraduate students in recognition of their research efforts associated with PUC. Students who are nominated submit their research paper or scholarly project for evaluation. This award is open to all academic fields. For the 2005 - 2006 academic year, nine students received the awards and presented their work at the PUC Student Research Day. Students represented the school of EMS, Nursing, LASS, Technology and Education.

Student Research Day:

The Student Research Day is a day long event honoring and presenting the research work of PUC students. Sessions included oral presentations, USRA presentation, a luncheon presentation and poster presentations.

Resource center for research opportunities for students

Besides the programs sponsored and funded by the Student Research Office, there are many research opportunities for PUC students. Many students are funded by grants received from individual faculty. Individual PUC schools and departments also fund student research either through grants to faculty who do research with students, funds and equipment to the students or research related courses. Several Institutions run at PUC fund student research projects. The Student Research Office has begun to collect the data from the various programs to provide a global view of the support for student research at PUC. Also a compilation of the presentations by PUC students concerning their research works has been initiated.