The Grainger College of Engineering
Siebel School of Computing and Data Science

Undergraduate Research Opportunities

Undergraduates are an essential part of our leading-edge research. There are many ways to contribute to impactful research early in your career, from summer programs to paid research positions with faculty.

Year Long Research

Semester Long Research

  • CS Job Portal is our department's employment opportunities with course assistant and undergraduate research positions.
  • URSA (Undergraduate Research in Scientific Advancement) is a student-run research program connecting first-year and second-year students with graduate student mentors to jump-start their research careers. 
  • UR2PhD (Undergraduate Research to PhD) A virtual, 10-Week, synchronous undergraduate research training course that aims to support new undergraduate researchers during their first research experience using a mock research proposal for Zero-Hour CS397 course credit.  Participants will learn the fundamental skills and processes to conduct research. This course intends to serve as the first meaningful experience in a student's research journey. Participants must be a currently enrolled undergraduate student of Siebel School of Computing and Data Science. This program is offered during the fall and spring semesters.

Summer Research

  • DaRin Butz Research Scholars is an ISUR-affiliate program offering undergraduate women ten weeks of summer research program funding using a learning-by-apprenticeship model for innovative work in computer science, aerospace, engineering, physics, or astronomy.
  • The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) INCLUSION program is a 10-week program for students from underrepresented communities to work in pairs with mentors on research aimed toward social impact based around open-source software development.
  • Summer Research Program for Undergraduates (SRP) students work on state-of-the-art research with university faculty while attending professional development programs aimed at making students strong researchers and graduate school candidates
  • Mind in Vitro Undergraduate Summer Research Program undergraduate researchers work with faculty mentors and graduate students on projects related to Mind in Vitro while participating in the Illinois summer research program networking, socials, lunches, and seminars.
  • Open Quantum Initiative Undergraduate Fellowship The Open Quantum Initiative (OQI) Undergraduate Fellowship provides undergraduate students with research experiences working in quantum science laboratories and research groups.
  • SPIN (Students Pushing Innovation) An internship program was launched to provide University of Illinois undergraduates with the opportunity to apply their skills to real challenges in high-performance computing, data analysis and visualization, cybersecurity, and other areas of interest to the NCSA. 
  • REU FoDOMMaT (The Future of Discovery: Training Students to Build and Apply Open Source Machine Learning Models and Tools) is  a 10-week on-site summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). FoDOMMaT will bring together 10 undergraduate students, particularly those who would otherwise lack such an opportunity, to work on cutting-edge projects. The program will begin with a week-long training where students are taught machine learning (ML) / deep learning (DL) methods. They will work for the remaining nine weeks on a specific research project under the guidance of a pair of research mentors, one from the project’s research area and the other with expertise in machine learning. Students will be trained to apply machine learning and to participate in research where these tools are at the center of scientific discovery, preparing them to apply machine learning methods in other fields. Students will openly share their models and tools, including their home institutions, an undergraduate research symposium on the University of Illinois campus, and the science and engineering research community. 
  • I-MRSEC (Illinois Materials Science and Engineering Center) offers an NSF-sponsored Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. Our ten week summer research program offers undergraduate students the opportunity to work closely with MRSEC faculty mentors on solving a challenging, meaningful scientific question through taking part in the interdisciplinary Illinois MRSEC research. The program also provides training to help students in their professional development as scientists and engineers, with particular emphasis on those skills related to communicating their scientific discoveries to help broaden its reach and make science more accessible. 
  • Community Academic Scholars (Evidence to Accreditation: Using LLMs for Automated Evidence-Grounded Drafting) Community-driven research and implementation. As part of the CAS experience, students participate in research in the Champaign-Urbana community over the summer, gaining hands-on experience and paid a stipend of $4,500. They are well mentored by both a faculty member and community partner mentor, in this case our local public health district, to conduct meaningful and impactful work. 

Mentorship Opportunities

Showcase Opportunities

  • Undergraduate Research Opportunities Open House The school hosts an open house in the fall and spring semesters where faculty, labs, and research groups discuss open undergraduate research opportunities with students
  • Engineering Research Fair is hosted by Grainger Engineering every semester for researchers to share their work and labs and for companies recruiting researchers.
  • Undergraduate Research Symposium is a yearly campus-wide research symposium for undergraduate researchers to present the results of their research and gain experience presenting work to a wider audience.