Research Experience for Undergraduates: Chemistry Programs

Undergraduate research in chemistry offers invaluable opportunities for students to deepen their understanding, develop critical skills, and prepare for future careers. These experiences provide a bridge between classroom learning and real-world application, fostering a deeper appreciation for the scientific process.

What is Undergraduate Research?

At the undergraduate level, research is self-directed work under the guidance and supervision of a mentor/advisor, usually a university professor. A gradual transition towards independence is encouraged as a student gains confidence and is able to work with minor supervision. Students normally participate in an ongoing research project and investigate phenomena of interest to them and their advisor. In the chemical sciences, the range of research areas is quite broad. A few groups maintain their research area within a single classical field of analytical, inorganic, organic, physical, chemical education or theoretical chemistry.

Benefits of Research Experience

Participating in undergraduate research offers a multitude of benefits, impacting students' academic and professional trajectories.

Enhanced Learning and Knowledge Retention

Most chemists learn by working in a laboratory setting. Information learned in the classroom is more clearly understood and it is more easily remembered once it has been put into practice. This knowledge expands through experience and further reading. From the learning standpoint, research is an extremely productive cycle. Experiencing chemistry in a real world setting. The equipment, instrumentation and materials used in research labs are generally more sophisticated, advanced, and of far better quality than those used in lab courses.

The Excitement of Discovery

If science is truly your vocation, regardless of any negative results, the moment of discovery will be truly exhilarating. Your results are exclusive. No one has ever seen them before.

Preparation for Graduate School

A graduate degree in a chemistry-related science is mostly a research degree. Many chemistry programs now require undergraduate research for graduation.

Getting Involved in Research

There are plenty of opportunities for undergraduate students to get involved in research, either during the academic year, summer, or both. Chemistry is an experimental science. We recommended that you get involved in research as early in your college life as possible. While most mentors prefer to accept students in their research labs once they have developed some basic lab skills through general and organic lab courses, some institutions have programs that involve students in research projects the summer prior to their freshman year. Others even involve senior high school students in summer research programs. Conducting a research project involves a series of steps that start at the inquiry level and end in a report. This is probably the most important step in getting involved in undergraduate research.

Finding a Research Opportunity

The best approach is multifaceted. Talk to other students who are already involved in research. If your school has an ACS Student Chapter, make a point to talk to the chapter’s members. Ask your current chemistry professor and lab instructor for advice. They can usually guide you in the right direction. Let the professor know that you are considering getting involved in research, you have read a bit about her/his research program, and that you would like to find out more. Professors understand that students are not experts in the field, and they will explain their research at a level that you will be able to follow.

Questions to Ask a Potential Research Advisor

Is there a project(s) within her/his research program suitable for an undergraduate student?
Does she/he have a position/space in the lab for you?
If you were to work in her/his lab, would you be supervised directly by her/him or by a graduate student? If it is a graduate student, make a point of meeting with the student and other members of the research group.
Determine if their schedule matches yours. A night owl may not be able to work effectively with a morning person.
Does she/he have funding to support the project? Unfunded projects may indicate that there may not be enough resources in the lab to carry out the project to completion. It may also be an indication that funding agencies/peers do not consider this work sufficiently important enough for funding support. Of course there are exceptions. For example, a newly hired assistant professor may not have external funding yet, but he/she may have received “start-up funds” from the university and certainly has the vote of confidence of the rest of the faculty. Otherwise he/she would not have been hired. Another classical exception is computational chemistry research, for which mostly fast computers are necessary and therefore external funding is needed to support research assistants and computer equipment only. No chemicals, glassware, or instrumentation will be found in a computational chemistry lab.
How many of his/her articles got published in the last two or three years? When prior work has been published, it is a good indicator that the research is considered worthwhile by the scientific community that reviews articles for publication. Ask for printed references. Remember that this advisor may be writing recommendation letters on your behalf to future employers, graduate schools, etc., so you want to leave a good impression.

Time Commitment

To do this, you should understand that the research must move forward and that if you become part of a research team, you should do your best to achieve this goal. Ultimately, it is your responsibility to do your best on both course work and research. The quick answer is as much as possible without jeopardizing your course work. The rule of thumb is to spend 3 to 4 hours working in the lab for every credit hour in which you enroll. However, depending on the project, some progress can be achieved in just 3-4 hours of research/week. Depending on your project, a few of those hours may be of intense work and the rest may be spent simply monitoring the progress of a reaction or an instrumental analysis. Many research groups work on weekends. Time management. Each project is unique, and it will be up to you and your supervisor to decide when to be in the lab and how to best utilize the time available to move the project forward.

Navigating Lab Dynamics

Different approaches and styles. Not everyone is as clean and respectful of the equipment of others as you are. Not everyone is as punctual as you are. Not everyone follows safety procedures as diligently as you do. Some groups have established protocols for keeping the lab and equipment clean, for borrowing equipment from other members, for handling common equipment, for research meetings, for specific safety procedures, etc. Part of learning to work in a team is to avoid unnecessary conflict while establishing your ground to doing your work efficiently.

Troubleshooting Research Challenges

“The project does not work.” This is a statement that advisors commonly hear from students. Although projects are generally very well conceived, and it is people that make projects work, the nature of research is such that it requires patience, perseverance, critical thinking, and on many occasions, a change in direction. Be informed, attentive, analytical, and objective. Read all the background information. Read user manuals for instruments and equipment. In many instances the reason for failure may be related to dirty equipment, contaminated reagents, improperly set instruments, poorly chosen conditions, lack of thoroughness, and/or lack of resourcefulness. When reporting failures or problems, make sure that you have all details at hand. Be thorough in you assessment. Then ask questions. Advisors usually have sufficient experience to detect errors in procedures and are able to lead you in the right direction when the student is able to provide all the necessary details. They also have enough experience to know when to change directions. Many times one result may be unexpected, but it may be interesting enough to lead the investigation into a totally different avenue.

External Research Opportunities

Absolutely! Your school may be close to other universities, government labs and/or industries that offer part-time research opportunities during the academic year. Contact your chemistry department advisor first. He/she may have some information readily available for you. You can also contact nearby universities, local industries and government labs directly or through the career center at your school.

Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Sites

What are Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) sites? REU is a program established by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support active research participation by undergraduate students at host institutions in the United States or abroad. An REU site may offer projects within a single department/discipline or it may have projects that are inter-departmental and interdisciplinary. There are currently over 70 domestic and approximately 5 international REU sites with a chemistry theme. Sites consist of 10-12 students each, although there are larger sites that supplement NSF funding with other sources. Most REU sites invite rising juniors and rising seniors to participate in research during the summer. Experience in research is not required to apply, except for international sites where at least one semester or summer of prior research experience is recommended. Applications usually open around November or December for participation during the following summer. Undergraduate students supported with NSF funds must be citizens or permanent residents of the United States or its possessions. Faculty can apply for funding to support a cohort of undergraduate students in research projects designed specifically for the NSF REU program (an REU Site) or can apply for additional funding to involve undergraduate students in a new or ongoing NSF-funded research project (an REU Supplement).

Undergraduates (college and university students) can apply directly to REU Sites to participate in research projects across the United States and the world. REU-supported students receive stipends and in many cases assistance with housing, meals and travel.

Examples of REU Projects and Mentors

Here are a few examples of REU projects and mentors:

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Dr. James Checco (CHEMISTRY): Exploration of cell-cell signaling pathways The Checco group combines chemical biology and biological mass spectrometry to investigate cellular communication signaling in the nervous and endocrine systems. REU students will design and synthesize peptides with non-natural functionalities, perform small molecule synthesis, and become familiar with biological assays and mass spectrometry.
Dr. Liangcheng Du (CHEMISTRY): Discovery of new antibiotics The REU students will learn how to isolate and identify new bioactive natural products from underexplored microorganisms. They will be exposed to techniques in microbial fermentation, metabolite analysis, biosynthetic gene identification and mutation, cloning and expression, biosynthetic enzyme activity assay, and metabolic pathway engineering. The outcomes will contribute to the ongoing fight against multidrug-resistant pathogens.
Dr. Catherine Eichhorn (CHEMISTRY): RNA folding and RNA-cofactor assembly The group’s primary focus is on understanding how RNA folds and interacts with cofactors to perform cellular functions. Students learn how to prepare RNA, protein, or small molecule samples and interdisciplinary methods including chromatography, electrophoresis, NMR, crystallography, and computational modeling.
Dr. Tim Gatzenmeier (CHEMISTRY): Synthetic Methodology towards Biologically Active Compounds The Gatzenmeier group develops novel synthetic methodology in the context of medicinal chemistry and sustainability. A major interest is accessing sulfur(-fluorine) compounds due to their versatility in drug discovery and development, as well as the potential of pentafluorosulfanyl (SF5) compounds to act as PFAS replacements. REU students will receive a focused training in experimental organic synthesis and modern lab techniques, such as inert-gas reaction conditions, automated chromatography purification, and spectroscopic compound characterization.
Dr. Yinsheng Guo (CHEMISTRY): Structural dynamics and optoelectronic properties in advanced materials REU students learn to grow bulk, micro, or nanocrystals and use laser spectroscopy and microscopy to explore their lattice motions, charge carrier dynamics, and solid-state chemistry. For example, Amaya Street (2023 REU) grew halide perovskite crystals and measured micro-reflectance and micro-photoluminescence at cryogenic temperatures to probe how charge carriers are stabilized in these novel semiconductors.
Dr. David Hage (CHEMISTRY): Rapid separation-based analysis of chemical and biochemical interactions The binding of drugs to agents such as blood proteins or dissolved organic matter in water controls the activity effects of many pharmaceutical agents in the body and environment. The Hage group uses affinity microcolumns to rapidly determine equilibrium constants and rate constants for these processes, and how these interactions change with disease or in the environment. REU students learn about high-performance liquid chromatography, analytical/bioanalytical chemistry, data analysis, and bioconjugation, as well as methods such as mass spectrometry or spectroscopy.
Dr. Rebecca Lai (CHEMISTRY): Development of Electrochemical Aptamer-based Sensors for Detection of Neurochemicals Folding- and dynamics-based electrochemical biosensors fabricated on a wide range of electrodes have been extensively studied in recent years. They are a promising approach to detect various target analytes, including proteins, DNA, small molecules, and metal ions. These sensors are rapid, sensitive, cost-effective, and operationally convenient. The current project focuses on the characterization of DNA aptamers specific for the detection of neurochemicals such as neuropeptide Y. It also involves the design and fabrication of electrochemical aptamer-based sensors that are well-suited for real-time detection of these neurochemicals in artificial cerebrospinal fluid. The REU student will learn the following: (a) characterization of DNA aptamers using different electrochemical techniques; (b) fabrication of an electrochemical aptamer-based sensor on a gold electrode via self-assembled monolayer chemistry and study the effects of target concentration on sensor behavior; and (c) investigate matrix effects on sensor performance.
Dr. Stephen A. Morin (CHEMISTRY): Animate materials Animate materials combine the characteristics of active, adaptive, and autonomous matter to yield materials that self-optimize for specific functions given the status of their environment. The Morin Group combines the versatile capabilities of polymer chemistry with innovative soft matter microfabrication techniques to build hierarchical materials with macroscopic, stimuli-responsive functionality. REU students learn how to synthesize silicones, hydrogels, and hybrids thereof using photochemistry, surface conjugation schemes, and soft lithography.
Dr. Andrzej Rajca (CHEMISTRY): Stable organic radicals for organic magnets, spin labels, and MRI contrast agents REU students learn to synthesize spin labels and high-spin organic molecules. For instance, UGs helped develop new high-spin molecules with ultra-robust stability and electrical conductivity. The next generation of these radical-based materials involves properties such as chirality, magnetoresistance, and much stronger magnetic properties.
Dr. Jared Shaw (CHEMISTRY): Mass Spectrometry of Ribosomes as an Antibiotic Target The student will learn to culture cells and then isolate & characterize ribosomes by native mass spectrometry and top-down proteomics. The results will elucidate how ribosome structure modulates protein synthesis and possibly reveal novel targets for drug development.

University Specific Programs

Carnegie Mellon University: Carnegie Mellon hosts the Mellon College of Science Summer Scholars Program, a NSF-funded research experience for undergraduates (REU). This will be the 5th year of the program, which is hosted jointly with chemistry, math, physics, and biology. Summer scholars work with graduate students at CMU professors to complete an 10-week research experience (May 27 - August 1) with topics including environmental chemistry and sustainability, catalysis, and biomaterials.
- Garcia-Bosch Lab: The REU student will be involved in the development of Fe, Cu and Ru complexes capable of performing multi-electron multi-proton transformation in a reversible fashion (electron-coupled-proton buffers).
- McDonough Lab: A summer research opportunity is available in the McDonough laboratory investigating the bioaccumulation of per/polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in marine benthic organisms. PFASs are toxic water contaminants that are ubiquitous in marine environments and are often stored in sediments at impacted sites. The sediment-water partitioning of these ionizable pollutants is difficult to predict using traditional equilibrium partitioning models. We will be conducting experiments in which marine polychaetes will be exposed to PFAS-fortified marine sediments and the accumulation of PFASs in polychaete tissue will be measured over time to determine uptake rates, biota-sediment accumulation factors, and elimination rates, and to describe the impacts of water and sediment quality parameters on these values.
- Jin Lab: Metal nanoparticles are typically in a metallic state as that of bulk metals (bandgap Eg = 0). Interestingly, when the particle size is reduced to ~2 nanometers, strong quantum size effects come into play, manifested in the emergence of a distinct Eg that is size dependent and the resultant significant alternations to the nanoparticle's optical and catalytic properties. In this project, students will learn how to precisely control the size and shape of ultrasmall nanoparticles (1-3 nm diameter) with atomic precision.
- Armitage Lab: The student will develop peptide nucleic acid (PNA) molecules to bind to DNA and/or RNA target molecules of biological interest with the long-term goal being to interfere with gene expression pathways involved in cancer, neurodegenerative and/or infectious diseases.
University of Pennsylvania: Welcome to the Department of Chemistry REU program entitled “Novel Techniques and Applications in Catalyst Research Development and Molecular Dynamics” at the University of Pennsylvania, Department of Chemistry (CatResDev)! Established in 2021, our program is excited to host ten undergraduate students during a ten-week summer research experience in the vibrant University of Pennsylvania campus located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the summer of 2026! The CatResDev REU at Penn Chemistry offers research exposure to undergraduates (US citizens or permanent residents) with limited previous laboratory experience. The Penn Chemistry research areas span a significant space across catalysis: method development, catalyst development, and synthetic applications, as well as extension into molecular dynamics and beyond.
Syracuse University: The National Science Foundation, who makes REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) possible, gives undergraduates the opportunity to join research projects for the summer. This allows students to experience first-hand how basic research is carried out, and to contribute consequentially.
- Stipend: Each participant will receive a summer scholarship in the amount of $7,000.
- Benefits: All participants will receive university housing at no additional expense in addition to a travel and conference reimbursement (if applicable). Participants also receive a $1,000 food allowance.
- Research Areas: Students have the opportunity to do research in any of the following areas: Inorganic Chemistry, Physical Chemistry, Biochemistry, Solid-State Science, Chemical Physics, Surface Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Organometallic Chemistry, Materials Science, X-ray Diffraction, and others.
- Eligibility: The program is open to all students who have completed their first year of study and who have a serious interest in chemistry.
Princeton University: The Department of Chemistry offers a research experience program for Princeton freshmen and sophomores during the summer of 2026. An educational stipend is provided. Summer housing for Leach Fellows will be provided in the Summer Research Learning Village. The Princeton University Department of Chemistry strongly believes that intellectual and demographic diversity drive science and discovery. Undergraduate students from outside Princeton University may apply for summer internships in the Department of Chemistry through the Leadership Alliance Summer Research - Early Identification Program (SR-EIP). citizen or non-citizen national, or permanent resident in possession of an alien registration receipt card (I-551) or other legal document of such status at the time of application. International citizens studying in the United States with an F-1 or J-1 visa are not eligible for the SR-EIP. The SR-EIP program is fully funded by Princeton Chemistry, and provides housing, travel reimbursement, and a stipend for living expenses.
Texas A&M University: The REU summer research program at Texas A&M University's Department of Chemistry offers undergraduate students a premier opportunity to engage in graduate-level research addressing critical challenges in sustainability, green chemistry, climate change, and human health. Participants work closely with faculty and graduate mentors on independent projects aligned with the "chemical transition," focusing on the shift from fossil fuels to sustainable precursors in the Gulf Coast region.
- Each week, the REU cohort will engage in dynamic seminars led by faculty members, alumni, and industry experts in an informal setting. Topics will include the impacts of climate change, the plastics industry, and the consumption of water and energy resources. Faculty will illustrate fundamental principles through examples from ongoing research within the department and in industry. Renowned industry leaders from companies like Dow, BASF, and Exxon will showcase chemistry as a vibrant, interdisciplinary field at the core of modern industries, sharing insights from their professional journeys. Additional seminars will dive into essential topics like scientific writing, ethics, publication, and communication.
- REU students will have the exciting opportunity to share their summer research results with the entire department through a short oral presentation.
- Crystallography Workshop: A short course on X-ray crystallography will be offered in collaboration with the X-ray Diffraction Laboratory in the Department of Chemistry.
- Computational Toolset: A workshop will be organized to indroduce students to computational modeling, a critical element in modern chemical research.
- Throughout the 10-week REU program, participants will immerse themselves in a variety of engaging social activities that foster meaningful interactions with faculty, peers, and the broader TAMU community.

Application Requirements

Statement of Purpose: A 1-page statement of purpose explaining previous experiences, your motivation for wanting to participate in this program, and your research interests.
Eligibility: This competitive program is open to undergraduates majoring in Chemistry, Biochemistry, Materials Science, or related fields, who have completed at least one year of college, including two semesters of college chemistry with laboratory experience.

Presenting Research

Students will take part in a university-wide poster session to present their summer research, scholarly, and creative activities alongside undergraduate students from institutions worldwide. Open to the public, this event offers each student the chance to share the results of their REU project with the broader campus community.

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