by Julia Brown 

Undergraduate Research Day 2025 occurs on Thursday, April 10 in The Honors College, The Rockwell Pavilion, and MD Anderson Library, and will feature projects by 390 student presenters from colleges and departments across the university. 

In 2009, at the fifth annual Undergraduate Research Day (URD), when Stuart Long was asked about the success of that year’s event, he stated, “You haven’t seen anything yet. We are just getting started.” 2025 marks the 20th anniversary of URD, UH’s leading multidisciplinary forum for presenting undergraduate research. Coordinated by the Office of Undergraduate Research and Major Awards (OURMA), this event unites students, faculty, staff and departments in celebration of a strong culture of undergraduate research.

URD’s Modest Beginnings

OURMA was originally established in 2005 as the Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) following the appointment of Scott Perry as the UH Honors College’s first Associate Dean of Undergraduate Research in 2004. At that time, the campus opportunities for mentored undergraduate research were relatively few. The Provost’s Undergraduate Research Scholarship (PURS) had been established and running for a few years with a small faculty roster and just enough funding for 20 students each semester, and often with even fewer applicants.

When Stuart Long was appointed Associate Dean of Undergraduate Research in 2006, he and then Honors College Program Manager Karen Weber worked at building OUR programming that would expand the number and breadth of funded, faculty-mentored research opportunities for undergraduates across the university. Over time, they built up the newly developed Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program, in which students submit research proposals and secure a faculty mentor with whom they would work closely for ten weeks over the summer. The program would be open to students of all majors, across the university.

With the belief that summer researchers needed a platform to share their findings, OUR created a university-wide event that would cap off the SURF experience—participants would create and display posters that summarized their findings, with the entire UH community invited to share dialogue. In October 2005, 27 SURF participants presented their research at the first Undergraduate Research Day. Dr. Karen Weber recalls: “The students were terrific presenters and impressive. The faculty were proud of their students and what they had accomplished.” The commitment and enthusiasm of both student researchers and faculty mentors signaled that this successful event had staying power. 

The first few URDs were modestly attended, but impactful. Dr. Samantha Rodriguez recalls presenting at the very first URD in 2005 as an undergraduate history major: “I was asked so many questions about my research. Most of the poster presentations were STEM-focused—the thought of presenting research via a poster was novel to me.” Her project, titled “How Can Education be Liberation?: Scholar Activists and Radical Scholarship in Houston, Texas,” examined oral testimonies in the study of the relationship between ethnic studies and community responsive research. She worked with history faculty member Dr. Luis Alvarez. “Dr. Alvarez’s expert guidance not only allowed me to think deeper about my research subject but also made me seriously consider pursuing graduate studies. My inquiry and research method were a launching pad for my graduate research focus into activism and knowledge production.” Dr. Rodriguez is now a history professor and co-coordinator of the Bridge (Puente) Program at Houston Community College.

Another presenter at an early URD event was Dr. Holley Love. In 2006, as a biomedical engineering student Holley Love conducted research with Dr. Stanley Kleis through the SURF program. Her project involved the creation of a new cell culture tool to be used in experiments in space; she presented her research at the second URD event. Love said that, at times, conducting research allowed her to work with her professor more as a colleague than as a student: “Instead of being graded and taught, I got to teach [my faculty mentor] about what my research showed,” she said. This experience no doubt contributed to her academic trajectory: she went on to complete her doctoral work in mechanical engineering here at UH and is currently a UH instructional associate professor.

By 2009, the event had grown; nearly 100 students presented their research at the fifth annual URD. Faculty and staff were impressed with the event. “I expected some good things,” said then UH professor of chemistry Simon Bott, “but I was literally taken aback by the quality of the entire session from the posters to how well it ran.”

The Importance of Faculty-Mentored Research

At the heart of URD are high quality faculty-mentored research projects and their proven benefit to undergraduate education. Research is a natural way to extend classroom learning; students can join in on existing research projects or create opportunities to dive further into their own interests. “My favorite [mentoring] experiences happen when a student begins with a nagging question or an insight in a short assignment on the discussion board and finds a way to develop the idea in a longer assignment, and then just keeps on moving,” says Dr. Ann Christensen, English professor. “Students occasionally get a hold of a really exciting idea that cannot be contained in the course of a regular semester. They might write a research paper, but they find there’s more to do. There’s more they want to do.”

In OURMA programs, students work with faculty mentors for a close view on projects with field-changing impact. Some students conceive, design, and complete their own projects, while other students become integral parts of projects already in progress. These projects can provide a foundation for career-shaping graduate work. Whether or not researchers go on to graduate school, undergraduate research and URD participation give them valuable experience that can contribute to their goals in the long run.

URD provides a forum in which student work can be shared and celebrated by the entire UH community. As much work as the students do in the course of their research, preparing to present at Undergraduate Research Day harnesses yet another skillset. Simply creating a research poster provides valuable experience they wouldn’t necessarily get in the classroom. “Students must carefully decide what and how much information to include in their posters and learn to explain complex ideas clearly without oversimplifying—an invaluable yet challenging skill,” says Dr. Hanako Yoshida, a professor in the psychology department.

Students work on coming up with an “elevator pitch” for their research that is accessible to multiple audiences, and at the URD event itself, they practice articulating their research questions, methodologies, and findings for distinct audiences—random visitors, as well as others in their field. “Researchers have to be able to defend, justify, explain and show the relevance of what they do. Presenting at Undergraduate Research Day hones those skills,” says Dr. Christensen.

OURMA programs and undergraduate research thrive because of the many generous faculty mentors that supervise eager undergraduates every year. Faculty mentors provide advice, feedback, supervise honors theses, and can go on to support the students’ professional trajectory as they apply for major awards and, themselves, pursue academic careers. Both Drs. Christensen and Yoshida have been longtime faculty mentors for and supporters of OURMA-sponsored programming—both have witnessed their mentees progress to procure prestigious awards and professorships at national R1 institutions after participating in mentored research.

Research Leads to Student Successes

Participating in faculty-mentored research programs and presenting at Undergraduate Research Day fit into a web of student professional and academic successes—many of these students go on to present their research at conferences, publish in top-tier journals, win major awards, and go on to all kinds of professional and academic successes. Dr. Yoshida personally recalls a few standouts from her substantial roster of successful mentees: “Maria Arredondo, a student who presented in the 2009 URD, went on to win an NSF GRFP in 2012 and is now an assistant professor of human development and family sciences at UT Austin. Kevin Darby participated in both SURF and PURS in 2009, and he is now an assistant professor at Florida Atlantic University. Viridiana Benitez completed the senior honors thesis and is now assistant professor at Arizona State University.”

URD’s history is filled with endeavors that began as student projects and later expanded in scope an impact. History major Ronnie Turner’s 2008 investigation of the personal files of Quinton Mease, a politically active director of the YMCA in Houston’s Third Ward, was eventually featured on the television news show “Dan Rather Reports.” Biology major Gabrielle Kostecki’s 2022 research on the development an anti-fentanyl vaccine helped her earn a Goldwater Scholarship (and special recognition from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott). Political science major David Paul Hilton’s 2023 project examining Eastern European trade sanctions formed the basis of a successful Fulbright grant application to study in Uzbekistan.

More recently, in 2024, engineering major Thomas “Tico” Hannan’s project, with mentor Dr. Gangbing Song and collaborator Jian Chen, involving revolutionary battery monitoring technology won the inaugural university-level Genspiration Prize at the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) conference. The experience has inspired Hannan to pursue a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering. Dr. Song, a longtime faculty mentor and supporter of OURMA programs, is eager to see his mentees achieve so much so early in their careers. “A student’s success is my success,” he says.

URD and OURMA Programs Grow

As the SURF program grew, the number of yearly URD presenters grew as well. (OUR would expand URD to include undergraduate researchers from across UH without the requirement of participation in one of its own programs. In 2020, OUR changed its name to incorporate Major Awards.) OURMA gradually added five additional program offerings to PURS and SURF, each providing opportunity for different sectors of UH’s undergraduate population. The Energy Scholars program, for example, is a program geared toward students exploring projects in the energy sector. The Mellon Research Scholars program is designed specifically for graduate-school bound students doing research in the humanities.

In the 2023-2024 academic year, OURMA supported 358 mentored research projects (supervised by 206 unique faculty mentors). The office supported students with over $760K in scholarships, fellowships, and research experiences. OURMA consistently pursues more and various types of funding, getting creative with industry partnerships that result in more research opportunities for undergraduates.

From the event’s humble beginnings with only a few presenters and attendees, URD has expanded to include hundreds of projects on display, arranged by college—URD takes over two floors of MD Anderson Library, including The Rockwell Pavilion and The Honors College. Hundreds of students apply to present at URD every year. The event itself is enormous, lively, and, from poster printing to red polo shirts to marshalling dozens of volunteers, it takes months of planning. Any student participating in a faculty-mentored research project is eligible to submit to OURMA’s call for proposals and secure a poster slot.

In 2020, URD pivoted online due to the global pandemic, but since then, digital repositories of poster presentations have been developed. The event has acquired an online symposium component. By 2024, URD in-person attendance had increased from pre-pandemic levels.

URD Today

This year, OURMA expects URD to host nearly 1000 students, faculty, staff, and visitors. With 292 posters on display, it is the event’s largest showing yet.

Adithi Nythruva, a sophomore psychology major who has participated in multiple OURMA programs—HERE, REACH, SURF, and Houston Scholars—is presenting at URD this year for the first time. “I am especially excited to gain a more comprehensive overview of humanities research conducted throughout campus,” she says. Her project, mentored by Dr. Abigail Modaff, examines Jewish female identity post-World War II. “I am looking forward to learning more about other undergraduates’ research projects and hard work over this past year.”

Students learn a lot from other students at this event: they see themes they are interested in, or people doing research in fields they didn’t know about. They are able to ask questions, learn new methods, and get inspired—the enthusiasm of hundreds of URD presenters is contagious. OURMA director Dr. Rikki Bettinger is a first-person witness to the impactful conversations, feedback, and peer support that students offer each other. “Student presenters sometimes come in nervous, particularly if this is their first time presenting their research,” she says. “But Undergraduate Research Day gives them a great boost of confidence. They look around and understand they are part of a community.”