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Undergraduate Research

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Undergraduate
research
opportunities

Discover practical solutions to
real-world problems

Are you interested in exploring areas and issues that inspire you to make a difference?

At Messiah University, you don’t have to wait until graduate school to get involved with hands-on research projects. Our undergraduate students have opportunity to participate in meaningful research across all of our 80+ majors.

There are many benefits to participating in undergraduate research, including helping you to:

  • Expand the body of knowledge in your area of study
  • Contribute practical solutions to real-world problems
  • Form valuable mentoring relationships with faculty experts
  • Deepen your understanding and expertise in your field
  • Think critically and assess research and scholarly works published by others
  • Sharpen your own research skills across a variety of disciplines
  • Learn to balance working individually and as part of a team
  • Decide what academic and career areas interest you most
  • Demonstrate capabilities in all of these areas to graduate schools and employers

† Contributing Reference: Christopher R. Madan, Braden D. Teitge, “The Benefits of Undergraduate Research: The Student’s Perspective,” May 1, 2013, The Mentor: An Academic Advising Journal, Division of Undergraduate Studies, Penn State University

Faculty-student collaboration

Meaningful faculty-student relationships are an important part of the Messiah educational experience. Your professors strive to get to know you, your strengths and your aspirations.

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Faculty
mentorship

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ratio

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practical answers to
important questions

Improving the human condition

Messiah students promote the common good through research that serves others and improves the human condition.

Designing a prosthetic hand for a 5-year old girl who wants to ride a bike. Protecting genetic privacy in the age of DNA databases. Reducing food waste on university campuses. Digitally mapping the ethnic history of the capital city of Pennsylvania. Finding ways to remove arsenic from drinking water. These are just some of Messiah students’ research projects that are making the world a better place.

In their own words

“Students are at a distinct advantage if they have the chance to do high-level undergraduate research. Graduate schools love basic research—it equips students to ask good questions, figure out how to answer them, how to troubleshoot, and it develops a lot of persistence and character.”

Alison Noble

Assistant Provost, Associate Professor of Chemistry

“I’m grateful for the opportunity that Messiah gives us to have a hands-on experience in an area of our field with others who have similar aspirations.”

Jessica Raboci

Engineering major

“I think the beauty of undergraduate research is that students who never considered themselves ‘scholars’ discover the thrill and the power of research well done and well invested to transform the world around them.”

Jean Corey

Director, Messiah University Center for Public Humanities

We support you—from proposal to presentation

Depending on your major, you may be able to begin a research project as early as your first year. You’ll have opportunities to work as part of a research team or one-on-one with a faculty mentor. We’ll help you identify, apply for and coordinate internal and external sources of research funding. Your professors can also help connect you with research-related internships, cross-cultural courses, service projects and summer research opportunities.

Ultimately, we want you to be able to share the excitement, inspiration and relevance of your work and ideas. All of Messiah’s academic departments provide annual symposiums where you can publicly present your research. Or if you’re a student in the arts, we provide a variety of venues where you can showcase your original works and performances. You may even be one of the many Messiah students who co-publish research with faculty or present your research at a national conference or symposium.

Messiah’s strong emphasis on professional research skills, methodology, publication and presentation makes you particularly well prepared for graduate school and in demand by employers.

Changing the world one research
project at a time:

View, listen and read the stories below as Messiah students and faculty members share the incredible learning, experiences and outcomes of their own research projects.

3D biomedical printing

Preventing PTSD

food recovery program

Digital mapping