Mentoring Young Scholars
Interested in mentoring high school students in summer STEMM research? And expanding your own research experiences? Mentoring Young Scholars may be just for you!
Each summer, rising 10th-12 graders from Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin are invited to apply to participate in an authentic STEMM research experience at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for 6 weeks during the summer as part of the Young Scholars Summer STEMM Research Program. Students accepted to the program gain hands-on experience in areas at the forefront of various STEMM fields, such as cancer immunology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, physics, quantum mechanics, bioengineering, electrical engineering, and more.
Those accepted into the program are matched with a UIUC research lab and form teams with another student, and in some cases, with a teacher from their school. (Everyone applies separately.)
2 Groups of Young Scholar Mentors:
Research faculty, staff, and graduate student researchers affiliated with The Grainger College of Engineering and the Carle Illinois College of Medicine are invited to propose a high school research project for consideration with the Young Scholars program.
High school teachers are invited to be co-researchers or teacher mentors for the accepted high school students. We make every effort to create teams of teachers and students from the same school, but this is not a requirement.
UIUC Research Project Proposals
Research faculty, staff, and graduate student researchers affiliated with The Grainger College of Engineering and the Carle Illinois College of Medicine are invited to propose a high school research project for consideration as a Summer 2024 POETS YS, GEnYuS, or SpHERES research team that will mentor a pair of high school juniors/seniors from starting with limited understanding of your field of research through to completion of a related project of their own and poster presentation explaining their research. Use the links below to view past symposium presentations of high school researchers in previous years.
Registration for faculty/staff research mentorship proposals for Summer 2025 will open in mid- to late-December.
Subscribe to the Young Scholars' Research Mentor Notifications group to receive an email notification when the call for project proposals is available.
High School Teacher Applicants for Research Teams
High School teachers play an important role in the Young Scholars experience.
We make every effort to create teams of teachers and students from the same school, but this is not a requirement. Interested students and teachers should apply regardless of whether you can recruit others from your school to apply.
Registration for Summer 2024 high school teacher applicants for research teams has closed.
Teacher Researchers
For some of the research projects, we are seeking a teacher to be a co-researcher (15-20 hrs/wk). As a member of the research team, you will participate in the research side-by-side with the students.
- Meet regularly as a school team to define task lists, to discuss findings and questions, and to prepare for presentations
- Provide a feedback channel to program leadership about how to best support students through this process
- Look for opportunities to embed concepts from this research in the classroom
- Honorarium provided (~$5,000)
Teacher Mentors
All other research projects will have a teacher mentor (~2 hrs/wk) who will touch base weekly with the students to discuss what they are learning, questions they have, and support them in addressing issues they experience.
- Provide a feedback channel to program leadership about how to best support students through this process
- Be a feedback partner as they prepare for their symposium presentation
- Attend the final symposium
- Honorarium provided (~$500)
Participating University of Illinois Units