Research

Whether you are a student in the humanities, engineering, psychology or biology, conducting undergraduate research can be a valuable part of your education. Being an integral part of a faculty member’s research lab expands your ability to work as a member of a team. Contributing to cutting-edge research allows you to develop technical skills and hone your analytical, problem-solving capabilities. Because the work undergraduate researchers do often contributes to a paper, abstract or poster, you’ll become adept at communicating science and your research to a variety of audiences.

At Carnegie Mellon, and at other institutions and hospitals in the Pittsburgh region, there are countless research opportunities available in a variety of fields. For example, HPP students are:

•    investigating the biomechanical properties of organs in a model of pelvic organ prolapse
•    labeling immune cells with iron oxide particles so that they can be tracked using MRI
•    determining the dissociation of proteins using Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry
•    devising ways to repackage necropsy samples so that the sample size can be reduced

Although research opportunities are plentiful, it will take some initiative on your part to obtain a research position. Here are some tips to get you started:

1. Identify a field that interests you.
2. Learn about labs within that field.
3. Read papers from those labs.
4. Contact a lab’s primary investigator to discuss research opportunities.