Hello, this is Becky again! Welcome to Pearson Hall!
Built in 1923, Pearson Hall is home to the Chemistry Department, but it's not just an academic building, don't be fooled! There is also awesome research happening inside in the laboratories!
Tufts is a Tier 1 Research University. This means that we produce some of the highest amounts of research annually. Also, because we’re a medium-sized university, professor need undergraduates to fill their labs, so lots of opportunities to get involved, even as a first-year! Finding research is as simple as talking with a professor and asking to join their lab. Some students will find their projects after taking a class that inspired them. Others will go through a department website, read up on the professors, and then email them directly.
In addition, email networks exist for each major. I'm signed up to the psych. network, so each week, I get emails about internships, research openings, and events happening in Boston. That's how I found one opportunity with the Human Interactions Lab. The lab was looking for interns, so I sent in my resume and a cover letter, did an interview - which was really more of a discussion about my interests - and that was it! I’m looking forward to examining miscommunication further so in the future, we can build robots that respond more accurately to human instruction.
Other really cool research projects include a soft robotics exoskeleton that Professor Intriligator and his students are building to provide ergonomic back support, since lots of college students spend most of their time hunched over a laptop. There is another team partnered with the Logan Airport working on a more efficient way to scan luggage. Fingers crossed, no more long lines in the future! Other students are studying silk tissue engineering, which Tufts is pretty famous for. Some of my friends have done triple-negative breast cancer research, designing 3D printable devices that can help stabilize chemo-therapy treated tumors.
Research at Tufts isn’t restricted to the lab! Through the Summer Scholar Program, students can secure funding to conduct their own, self-designed research for ten weeks and work with a Tufts professor instead of for. There are also unique international opportunities. Professor Machanda, for example, is the director of long-term research at the Kibale Chimpanzee Project. Undergrads, as part of the Global Research Assistant Program, can travel to the Kibale National Park in Western Uganda to do conservation work and study chimp behavior.
I also want to point out something that's really important: research is not just for the STEM kids. You can do research in film, in history, in economics, in art. A popular starting point for research projects in the humanities and social sciences is the Tufts Digital Collections and Archives (DCA), which is located in the basement of Tisch library. One of my friends, Harrison, researches the history of Black student life at Tufts and in the surrounding communities. Some of the collections he has explored include the Edward Murrow papers which reveal some of the lesser known details from his career, the Gerald Gill Papers which cover the histories of multiculturalism and diversity at Tufts, and the original sketches for the popular PBS children’s show, “Arthur”.
Research is also an integral part of the classroom experience. A lot of people imagine research as the impressive projects I just mentioned, but as Tufts students, you do this research process in the classroom as well. First-years have to take a writing seminar. For most Tufts students, it is their first time writing college-level research papers. For my class, I researched the history of fanfiction and examined how it could be used as a tool to teach writing. I actually got to interview famous fanfiction authors Sanjuno, Blackkat, and Skygem! In my sophomore year, I took an entrepreneurial marketing class and was challenged by a local medtech consulting firm, S2N, to create a marketing strategy for their data analytics tool. My team and I had to research the medtech industry - we studied competitors by doing interviews, talking with clients, and studying what were the trends and existing products in the market. For my management class, I even researched anaerobic digesters, a project sponsored by the Office of Sustainability. And there a ton of other research projects done by students in the classroom.
At Tufts, students are working to solve tough problems related to human health, sustainability, social issues, and more. The University and faculty provide students with lots of tools and support so they can pursue their passions academically and professionally.
