AURCA Mentors

Thank you for your interest in mentoring AURCA students! AURCA was established by the College of Arts and Sciences to expand access to valuable research and creative opportunities to work-study eligible undergraduates.

Program Overview

The AURCA program is excited to support the fifth cohort of student researchers during the 2026-2027 academic year. Access to paid work is often a barrier to research experiences for students, particularly those who are economically at-risk and/or from populations that have not historically had research opportunities. The AURCA program connects eligible undergraduates to paid research and creative opportunities with CAS faculty mentors. AURCA mentors receive enthusiastic mentees who expand research progress and cultivate new knowledge.

AURCA at-a-glance

• All CAS faculty may apply to be an AURCA research mentor.

• There is no financial cost to AURCA research mentors. AURCA research students are 100% supported by AURCA funds and the students' financial aid.

• AURCA mentors interview and select a student among the AURCA applicant pool.

• AURCA students work 8-14 hours per week during the academic year (fall and spring).

• AURCA mentors have the primary responsibility of training and supervising the undergraduate research student, although graduate students and research assistants may assist.

• AURCA offers resources and facilitates training for mentors who would like enhance their mentoring relationship with AURCA research assistants.

• For those who are interested, AURCA recommends mentoring resources from the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research.

Mentor Guidance

• Hiring and orienting an AURCA student

  Hire students who are excited about the project topic!

  Student investment in the project increases when you share project goals, big-picture significance, and the role their small part plays in the overall project.

  Provide background readings to help the student understand the context of the project. Introduce the student to others working on the project and their roles, specify what training the student will need and who will be supervising them, etc. Contact AURCA for help facilitating necessary training.

• Expectations and schedules

  Agree upon a work schedule, offering a minimum of 8 hours per week.

  Establish schedule policies, including when and where the student should be when working, what they should do if they cannot be there or realize they have a conflict. How much advance notice do you expect? Whom should they contact and through what means (email, a phone call, etc.)?

  Establish clear expectations for the project early, including what tasks students will undertake and why. Explain what it will take for students to earn increasing responsibility as they progress.

• Communication and engagement

  Set up regular meeting times with your student to touch base, review progress and performance, answer questions. Graduate student involvement cannot replace regular contact between AURCA mentor and student.

  Strive to create an environment where asking questions is encouraged. Be clear about your policies regarding question asking (e.g. would you rather have the student ask many questions, some more than once, to limit mistakes or an alternative approach).

  What kind of note-taking is expected? What is the best way to communicate with you? Good communication is the key to a successful partnership.

  Spend time occasionally chatting with the student about their classes, campus life, etc. It is invaluable to the student and increases their sense of belonging in the research environment and at OSU.

• Mistakes and feedback

  If the student is doing something wrong, give them constructive feedback right away. Often they can make the correction if given a clear explanation of the problem and what needs to be done differently.

  Remember that AURCA students are often new to research and creative activity. Regular, supportive feedback is critical to their success in the program and future experiences.

  Contact AURCA right away if there is a problem. We want to help you resolve the issue as quickly as possible.

Submit a Project

• Mentor application and requirements

  Mentor applications for the upcoming academic year typically open in late spring semester. Applications for 2026-2027 are now open and are due July 10, 2026.

  The short, online application asks you to provide a brief description of the project, student tasks and duties, hours per week expected, minimum qualifications required and your contact information for interviews. You will start interviewing AURCA applicants in mid/late August.

• Designing an AURCA project

  The AURCA program encourages student applicants who may be new to research and creative activity. Please keep this in mind when designing a project. AURCA projects should have enough work to occupy students 8-12 hours of work per week during the academic year (September - early May), even before any trainings are fully completed.

  AURCA projects do not need to be fully independent, but may function as part of a larger project, a pilot study or preliminary data gathering. Be specific in your project description, tasks, and minimum qualifications. This will help interested students find the best project fit.

  AURCA projects should be feasible for the student and should generate some data/information the student could present. AURCA projects can be multi-faceted and have built-in challenges that students can overcome after developing their skills and confidence.

  Note, students will receive the list of project descriptions without the mentor information at first. Students will be prepped for the interview phase with you through an AURCA orientation session and will receive contact information for potential mentors after orientation. At this point, students will begin contacting you for interviews. Please exclude names or specific identifiers from the project description.

  AURCA aims to offer some professional development workshops and other trainings. We will also facilitate finding available trainings for your students, when possible. If there are specific trainings desired for students on your project, list them in the specified section on the application.

• Application components
  • Project title
  • Project description (~100 - 200 words)
  • Tasks and responsibilities
  • Minimum qualifications of the student
  • Skills or knowledge the student will gain through the project
  • Required or recommended training
  • Mentoring approach
  • Hours per week the student will work and any schedule constraints
• Submit a project

  Interested faculty may submit a project application at the below link. Current/former AURCA mentors are eligible to apply for a new or continuing project. We will review the full project application pool when considering the extent of new and continuing projects to select for the upcoming year.

  AURCA Mentor Application

Sample Projects

The AURCA program is committed to supporting curious students from all disciplines and backgrounds. We aim to offer a variety of projects from across CAS disciplines. We encourage students to explore broadly and be open to all projects that spark their curiosity. Students often place strong emphasis on the skills to be gained and the work environment when selecting projects. Below are broad topic areas of some recent AURCA projects, though many projects could be considered interdisciplinary. Within these areas, we share some sample project descriptions and student responsibilities.

• Physical Sciences

  Impacts of Nanoplastics in the Atmosphere

  Nanoparticles composed of plastic, or nanoplastics, have recently been shown to enter the atmosphere from terrestrial and marine sources, and they can stay suspended in air for up to two weeks, during which time they may undergo transport, even to remote regions. In the atmosphere, nanoparticles influence climate directly by absorbing or scattering radiation and indirectly by altering cloud formation and properties. The Schnitzler Group has begun investigating the interactions of nanoplastics with sunlight and cloud water and how they change with residence time in the atmosphere. The absorptivity of nanoplastics is determined using UV-vis spectroscopy and colorimetry. The hygroscopicity is determined using particle sizing before and after exposure to water vapor. The atmospheric aging of nanoplastics is simulated in the laboratory using custom-build photo-reactors and flow-tubes, where particles are exposed to light and oxidants, like ozone. The AURCA researcher would contribute to ongoing work and/or follow-up projects using these methods to help provide new insights into the complex role of these emerging contaminants in the environment.

  Student tasks and responsibilities:

  The AURCA researcher will contribute to the generation of nanoplastics (i.e., using a 3D printer or tube-furnace), the characterization of their light absorption (i.e., using custom-built and commercial spectrometers), the characterization of their water uptake (i.e., using aerosol particle sizers), and the simulation of their atmospheric aging (i.e., using a photo-reactor, solar simulator, or oxidation flow-tube).

• Arts and Humanities

  Digital Publishing in Art History

  We seek a student research assistant to aid with the publication of an open access online scholarly journal that is supported by OSU and another university. The journal, called Different Visions, is focused on art history and medieval studies: https://differentvisions.org/ The student will contribute to the preparation of each issue. The full process can take a year or two from the concept for an issue to the formatting the final essays. During the 22-23 academic year we expect at least two issues to be published, possibly three, as well as preparations for future issues. A research symposium presentation could explain the processes and technical knowledge needed for publishing such a journal as well as the issues surrounding open-access scholarship.

  Student tasks and responsibilities:

  The primary duties of the student will be to aid in the transition of finalized scholarly essays and accompanying images onto the online platform (using wordpress) and format them as downloadable pdfs. Student will also contribute to the promotion of essays on social media and through other paths. Additional duties may develop, related to the design and organization of the website as well as planning for future issues. Student will also research back issues and brainstorm new ways to promote and share the journal’s research.

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  Research on dialects of English in Oklahoma (RODEO)

  The Language Studies Lab in the Department of English houses a collection of dialect data from all over Oklahoma. The collection includes data across an urban-rural gradient, inter-generational data, and limited data from minority groups in the state. We are in the process of organizing, transcribing, and storing the data in improved ways to support more types of research. We are also looking to increase our collection, especially for minority groups, which although present in our collection, are under-represented. The student researcher would continue to support making our current collection more accessible as well as help us grow our collection. Part of the new data collection can be tailored toward a specific question of the student’s guided choosing.

  Student tasks and responsibilities:

  The student will make the data collection more user-friendly. They will continue to cut audio using open source software such as Audacity and Praat. They will create transcriptions using open source software such as eLan and other automated systems. They will code data for specific words using data coding software, such as NVivo. They will work on protecting participant information while allowing more student researchers to work with this data.

  The student will also collect new data with a new data collection instrument, integrate this new data into the collection, and work on their own research question on the data. This may involve further transcription, vowel measurements, and transcription. The student will have opportunities to present the data and their work with the data to public audiences.

• Plant Biology and Ecology

  Impacts of perturbation of the mycobiome on root colonization by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi

  The soil microbiome plays key roles in structuring plant communities. Soil-born fungal pathogens can lead to negative feedbacks which may promote high plant species diversity. Mutualists, such as arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, can promote or disrupt plant species diversity. Studies have increasingly highlighted the need to consider both pathogen and mutualist when studying mechanisms structuring plant communities. With climate change, biotic interactions shift adding to the urgency to understand how pathogen and mutualist simultaneously shape plant communities. In our prior NSF grant, we combined a warming field experiment with a shade house experiment, to investigate the role of the soil microbiome in controlling plant demographics. To test these hypotheses, we grew seedlings of Guarea guidonia in a shade house experiment where we manipulated soil inoculum, microbiome, seedling density, and soil moisture. Soil inoculum came from either ambient plots or plots warmed to +4C at the Tropical Response to Altered Climate experiment. The microbiome treatments consisted in unaltered microbiome, sterilized soil, altered fungal pathogen communities, and altered mycorrhizal fungal communities. Seedlings were grown either alone, with two, or with four additional seedlings. Seedlings grew for three months before surviving seedlings were harvested. Soil samples were collected before and after the experiment and from surviving roots to analyze fungal composition using DNA sequencing. We analyzed seedling growth/survival using mixed linear models, traits (root and leaf) and fungal communities using generalized joint attribute modeling. The AURCA student will take the lead in the lab work associated with quantifying root colonization, developing new skills in staining method and microscopy. With these data in hand, the student will be able to answer its own question regarding how warming (soil source) and moisture influence root colonization. The AURA student will present their findings at the Undergraduate Research Symposium.

  Student tasks and responsibilities:

  Root staining and Root colonization assessment (using microscopy). Lab meeting attendance. Individual meeting with mentor. Developing independent research question. Analyzing data and presenting findings at least the Undergraduate Symposium.

• Social and Political Sciences

  Identity and power status in global terror organizations

  One of the great puzzles in terrorism research is what role does communal identity and power status play out in terrorist organization targeting decisions. Is ethnicity a “weapon of the weak” that allows discriminated ethnic groups to strike back against more politically powerful ethnic groups? Or is terrorism used in an enforcement role; meant to keep politically disadvantaged ethnicities subservient to more powerful groups? As part of an effort to solve this puzzle, I have been mentoring a team of undergraduate student researchers who are collecting data on terrorist organizations listed in the Global Terrorism Database. Students research and code whether each organization claims to represent, recruits from, or receives financial support from a specific ethnic, racial, or religious group. They also catalog the “power status” of this group, using the coding from a separate cross-national dataset known as the Ethnic Power Relations dataset. While this team has so far completed coding for groups operating in Europe and North America, data on Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia has yet to be collected. An AURCA student would join the team in finishing this data collection effort.

  Student tasks and responsibilities:

  The student will work as part of a research team collecting data on terrorist organizations listed in the Global Terrorism Database. Using search engines to find reliable information on each terrorist group from academic, government, or other trustworthy sources, the student will research and code whether each organization claims to represent, recruits from, or receives financial support from a specific ethnic, racial, or religious group. Initial research will focus on African countries, with students selecting other countries in other regions if time permits. Students will input this data into a shared Google spreadsheet document. They will also use this dataset to catalog their information sources. The student will also have the opportunity to learn basic data cleaning and analysis skills in STATA statistical software package.

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  Congressional Combat Veterans and Support for Defense Legislation

  The number of veterans serving in Congress has been gradually declining since 1971 when veterans made up 72% of Congress. This is in stark contrast to the less than 8% of the 118th Congress. This study investigates how this shift in demographics affects American foreign policy. Specifically, this paper analyzes the link between the military service of Congress members and the effect on their voting records concerning defense-related matters. We argue that Congress members with military experience – particularly involvement in conflict – will be less supportive of military action than their non-combat and non-military counterparts. We test this proposition by using a unique dataset drawn from roll call data and biographies for all House members from the 80th (1947) to 118th Congress (2023). The results from our study allow us to better understand legislative behavior, the impact of military service on policy-making, and how the legislative branch has evolved.

  Student tasks and responsibilities:

  Students will access the congressional biographical directory to collect demographic information and military experience information on members of Congress from 1947-2023. Given that the quality of the information on the directory can vary; additional information can be gained from obituaries and biographies database. This will form the database which will be then used in statistical analysis.