With many research labs having restricted access and student's taking classes remotely, undergraduate research has been nothing short of a challenge.
Research can take the form of a well-defined activity with clear outputs that can be generated remotely, with mentorship from the PI or current lab members. When reaching out to faculty about undergraduate research positions, we enourage keeping the following options in mind. Examples:
. research the published literature on a particular topic and write up an annotated bibliography, potentially concluding with a 1-2 page written tutorial on that topic
. research and/or write up of detailed, methodological protocol(s) that is relevant to your project.
. perform analysis on an existing data set and generate a graph (or set of graphs)
. use existing data to develop a set of figures for a paper
. perform a patent search and make a table that summarizes the existing patents
. make graphical schematics that describe methods (e.g., steps in a process, etc.) and summarize key results