Undergraduate Research Opportunities

Professor and student.

The College of Arts and Sciences is committed to providing opportunities for motivated undergraduate students to work alongside faculty members in scholarly and artistic pursuits—in high-tech laboratories, unique field sites, and diverse studios and maker spaces—while gaining valuable workforce skills.

Through hands-on training and mentoring, students learn how to employ research methodologies, attain and utilize artistic insight, use advanced research equipment, and collaborate with both professionals and peers.

Get Started!

Interested in undergraduate research, but not sure how to get started?

Learn the “ins and outs” of undergraduate research, meet peer mentors, and connect with faculty researchers through the Office of Undergraduate Research.

Resources include:

  • Drop-in Peer Mentoring
  • Research Skills Short Course
  • Cougar Undergraduate Research Experience

Research Grants

The college supports funding for undergraduate success. Opportunities include:

Poster Competition

Undergraduate students can present their research accomplishments at the annual WSU Showcase for Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities (SURCA).

Students in all majors can share the results of their research, scholarship, and creative activity at SURCA and make an original intellectual or creative contribution to their discipline. Awards are presented for outstanding merit in several categories.

Highlights

Undergrads tackle important questions in the sciences and humanities

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, relieving chronic pain, understanding protest behavior, and conserving wildlife are among the goals of undergraduate research projects recently funded by the College of Arts and Sciences. Students in mathematics, chemistry, foreign languages, and political, psychological, environmental, and biological sciences worked with faculty mentors to solve questions as diverse as a book’s chances of becoming a best seller and which food sources threatened butterflies prefer.

Bala Krishnamoorthy working at a white board.

Math undergrads meet to solve real-world problems

How human and animal diseases spread, how trees move in the wind, and how confined fluids flow are among topics of research conducted by undergraduate mathematicians from across the Pacific Northwest who met at Washington State University to discuss their work.

Undergraduate research poster presentation.

Research opportunities for underrepresented students

As an Hispanic woman from southern California, Alexandra Malena questioned just how welcome she would feel at Washington State University’s rural Pullman campus. As a psychology and neuroscience double major, she also found herself asking how she would fare in WSU’s curriculum.

“Being first-gen and in a STEM field, I always had these doubts in the back of my mind,” Malena said. “But I quickly found a group of people here who helped me feel welcome and comfortable.”

Alexandra Malena working in a lab.

Emeritus Society funding for undergraduate research

Through the WSU Emeritus Society, retired faculty members continue to support student success and empower experiential learning. In 2022, four arts & sciences students were selected to receive an undergraduate research or scholarship award from the society, along with funding to continue their independent projects.

Thompson Hall appears behind landscaping at the WSU Pullman campus.