If you’re fascinated by biology, dive in head first at Illinois Tech while working with faculty on cutting-edge research projects that make a big impact on the world.
The biology faculty and staff are strongly committed to quality teaching and advising, as well as excellence in research. As a biology undergraduate, you will conduct research during the school year. Opportunities to extend that research into the summer are provided by $5,000 Lewis College of Science and Letters Undergraduate Summer Research Stipends, allowing select undergraduates to conduct research for 10 weeks during the summer. Some examples of past research biology students have done with these stipends are:
- Iva Veseli developed an interdisciplinary experience in biology and computer science to pursue a career in bioinformatics research. She conducted research in genomics and computational biology with assistant professor Jean-Francois Pombert with projects focusing on comparative genomics of bacterial genomes—specifically, Vitreoscilla and Neisseria species. She also has helped to write Perl scripts that assist with data analysis, and worked as an undergraduate research assistant on a National Institutes of Health project.
- Anam Adil, along with Jialing Xiang, professor of biology, searched for a cell-death gene in breast cancer tissue.
- Ali Mahmoud’s research goal was to find an avenue of visualization that could be used on the project “A Simple and Improved Pipeline to Assess Genetic Diversity Between Bacterial Genomes.” In doing so, he developed an elaborate method to show genetic distances, or the genetic divergence between species, focusing his research on testing out R-based visualizations.
Summer Research Opportunities
Summer research opportunities allow you to work alongside faculty and graduate students on fascinating projects. For some students, conducting research early in their academic career is an important step in determining whether to pursue graduate school or a career in either academia or industry. Research experience can also help students decide whether their specific academic course is right for them.
Illinois Tech offers four- and eight-week summer research opportunities in engineering, science, and business. As a current Illinois Tech student, you do not need to fill out the formal application. However, we recommend that students inquire about research opportunities by March 29, 2020, to be considered for the research opportunity you're interested in. Instead, email the faculty member that is associated with each research opportunity directly to inquire about participating in the course. Be sure to indicate your interest in the project and highlight relevant experience when you contact the faculty member. Also, make sure to verify with your academic adviser that the research opportunity you would like to pursue fits into your degree plan. If admitted to the research opportunity, the faculty member will provide you with instructions for registering.
UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES
GRADUATE RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES
Questions about summer research opportunities? Email elevate@iit.edu or call 312.567.3849.