The College of Liberal Arts’ student body is driven by curiosity and questioning. We encourage all our students to participate in research and help create knowledge. The College of Liberal Arts offers funding opportunities each semester, including summer, to afford students to undertake critical and impactful work. Our Liberal Arts Undergraduate Research Awards (LAURAs) are College funded awards with bi-annual calls for proposals.
The Liberal Arts Undergraduate Research Awards (LAURAs) grant $2,000 each to undergraduate student-faculty member duos to conduct a research project over the course of a semester. Each student earns a $15/hour stipend from the grant while spending 100 hours on the project, which enables students to dedicate their time to developing research skills without having to worry about their financial wellbeing.
The Liberal Arts Undergraduate Research Awards (LAURA) creates more opportunities for undergraduate students to develop research skills by working with faculty mentors on faculty-led research projects while increasing support for faculty research in the College of Liberal Arts.
LAURA Scholars Teams Share Experiences
Student-faculty teams worked together over the course of a semester or summer on a research project of mutual interest. Visit our LAURA Scholars Testimonials page and watch the videos to see some of the experiences from our faculty and students!
Featured News
Faculty and Student Research Teams
The College of Liberal Arts is pleased to announce the Spring 2025 LAURA Scholar Awards:
Spring 2025
- Eli Alshanetsky (Philosophy) and student Jo Liberman for AI and Cognitive Autonomy
- Lisa Briand (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Arwen Gormley for Impact of Adolescent social isolation on microglial morphology in the pain circuit
- Eunice Chen (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Laura Walker for Use of machine learning to explore the effects of ultraprocessed food and physical activity cross sectionally and longitudinally
- Jason Chein (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Tanaka Manhede for Intervention to enhance human discernment of artificial intelligence
- Jared Clemons (Political Science) and student Adenike Onanuga for Privatizing Antiracism: Why Racism Cannot Solve Racial Inequality
- Deborah Drabick (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Sakoura Casimir-Cespedes for Assessment of the Coping Power Program among Minoritized Children in a Low-Income, Urban School
- Matt Graham (Political Science) and student Alexis Thomas for Detecting Cheating in Online Surveys
- Melissa Gilbert (Geography, Environment and Urban Studies) and student Kristin Cornish for Emerging critical infrastructures during COVID-19: The role of PA school districts in supporting vulnerable communities during crisis
- Kristin Gjesdal (Philosophy) and student Carolyn Gnage for Unruly Women
- Chelsea Helion (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Bridget Colgan for Using Natural Language Processing to Examine Intergenerational Conversation
- Kevin Henry (Geography, Environment and Urban Studies) and student Julia Schumacher for Beyond Census Demographics: Using Business Data and Street View Images to Enhance Ethnic Enclave Measures
- Ames Sutton Hickey (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Madonna Samaan for Dietary Fat Composition and its Role in Altering Food Preferences and Standard Diet Devaluation
- Hilary Lowe (History) and student Maya Tzan for Fannie and Amelia J. Allen Diaries Project
- Patricia Melzer (Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures) and student Kirana Horn for Alternative masculinities in the (West) German left-radical political movement Autonome (chapter draft)
- Harvey Neptune (History) and student Dorian Miller for To Trash America: Consensus Historians and the US Past
- Nora Newcombe (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Leah Harvey for GEO-OWL Academy: Advancing Large-Scale Spatial Thinking through Geospatial Exploration and Outdoor World Learning
- Thomas Olino (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Dabin Yim for Reward-related brain functioning in adolescents at high- and low-familial risk for depression
- Hamil Pearsall (Geography, Environment and Urban Studies) and student Olivia Sansone for Overcoming barriers to participation in nature prescription programs in Philadelphia
- Jessica Roney (History) and student Tina Jacz for The Revolution Out of Bounds – Building a City Overnight
- Christina Rosan (Geography and Urban Studies) and student Mildred Arevalo for Mapping Trees to Advocate for Equitable and Climate-Ready Neighborhoods: A Student-Centered and Community-Engaged Mapping Partnership with the USchool
- Eileen Ryan (History) and student Isa Nunez for Mussolini's Empire in the City of Brotherly Love: Community Reactions to the Invasion of Ethiopia, 1935-36
- Michael Sances (Political Science) and student Rishi Pattni for Non-Lawyer Judges in Pennsylvania Trial Courts
- David V. Smith (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Jamie-Nicole Luistro for Environmental stressors and brain health in older adults
- Ronald Taylor (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Tegan Schultz for Online Racial Discrimination, Depression, and College Adjustment Among African American Students
- Olga Timoshenko (Economics) and student Alexander Kitsmarishvili for The Impact of US – South Korea Trade Agreement on U.S. Economy: Do News Matter?
- Will Vincent (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Alexis Henegan for The role of intersectional stress in the relationship between expectations of and attitudes toward masculinity and depression for young Black men who have sex with men and are living with HIV
- Mathieu Wimmer (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Katherine Lee for Delineating the neurobiology of chronic inflammatory pain using novel machine learning-based appraoches
- Sean Yom (Political Science) and student Kyrollos Abraham for The Lost Politics of Middle East Monarchies: The Relevance of Royalism for Modern Authoritarianism
- Adam Ziegfeld (Political Science) and student Reema Kalidindi for Election Alliances in India's States
Fall 2024
- Kevin Henry (Geography and Urban Studies) and student Madelyn Bower for Exploring the relationship between residence in an Asian enclave and breast cancer stage for Asian women
- Karen Hersch (Greek and Roman Classics) and student Thomas Fishman for Vestals of the Barnyard: The Sacred Chickens of Rome and the Riddle of Gallinaceous Virginity
- Artemy Kalinovsky (History) and student Vivek Iyer for Pipeline Politics and Development in Post-Soviet Eurasia
- Judith A. Levine (Sociology) and student Kyla McDermott for Landing a Job: Moving from College to Employment in the New Economy
- Patricia Melzer (German) and student August Horn for Alternative masculinities in the (West) German left-radical political movement Autonome (chapter draft)
- Leslie Reeder-Myers (Anthropology) and student Neamiah Pedraza for Community Archaeology and Museology: Bringing Timbuctoo (Back) to Temple
- Jessica Roney (History) and student Tina Jasz for The Revolution Out of Bounds – Building a City Overnight
- David V. Smith (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Ashley Hawk for White matter hyperintensity burden and premature brain aging: Assessing moderating influences of environmental stressors and social support
- Jessica Stanton (Political Science) and student Erica Stone for Global Anti-Terrorism Law: Criminalizing Support for and Incitement of Terrorism
Past LAURA Scholar Awards
