Erin Dolan

Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) are being championed by high profile organizations (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2011; Olson & Riordan, 2012) for their potential to engage undergraduates in research at scale. CUREs are learning experiences in which whole classes of students address a research question or problem with unknown outcomes or solutions that are of interest to the scientific community. A growing body of evidence demonstrates the benefits of CUREs for student learning, development, and persistence in the natural sciences (Corwin, Graham, & Dolan, 2015; Gentile, Brenner, & Stephens, 2017; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2015; Rodenbusch, Hernandez, Simmons, & Dolan, 2016). This guide will walk you through designing and implementing an Undergraduate Research Experience.

The purpose of this series is to provide resources related to teaching and career development for faculty at all stages of their careers and to scientists considering careers in industry. Young faculty (or graduate students and post docs thinking about going into academia) will find valuable information about how to design a course, how to find the right job, including academia and industry, and how to incorporate undergraduate research into their programs.