The USC Young Researchers Program
The University of Southern California is pleased to present a summer science and engineering opportunity for L.A.-area high school rising seniors.
Informational meetings for interested grad student/post-doc volunteers have already passed. However, click here for a copy of the information presented at the meetings to learn more!
The deadline for this year's applications has passed. Applicants will be notified by the beginning of June about their admission status.
This year's program dates will be July 2nd-August 10th
About the YRP
The USC Young Researchers Program is a six-week program that matches talented and motivated USC-area high school rising seniors with USC research groups for a summer of research under the supervision of faculty and graduate students. Students get to experience first-hand the excitement of research in real university labs. The research work is supplemented with weekly workshops to give students some basic tools to help them get into college and pursue degrees in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields.
History of the YRP
The USC Young Researchers Program is the brainchild of Earth Science graduate students Laurie Chong and Carie Frantz and was developed under the guidance of Professor Will Berelson. The program was conceived in the fall of 2008 as a way to bring local high school students, especially disadvantaged and traditionally underrepresented students, to USC to experience research first-hand and to encourage these students to attend college and pursue careers in the sciences. The inaugural year of the program--the summer of 2009--saw seven students from two USC-nighborhood schools doing work in six different labs in the Earth and Marine Enviornmental Science Departments. After presenting their research posters at the end of the six weeks to friends, teachers, family, and USC students and professors, students reported that the program made them feel more confident in their abilities and more likely to go to college. We considered this a great success.
Check out the outstanding students that joined us in our first two years, Summers 2009 and 2010, on our 2009 and 2010 Program pages.
The program wrapped up its third year last summer (2011). Check out what our students did last year on our 2011 Program page.
Sponsors
Financial support for this program has generously been provided by:
We also thank the following organizations for volunteering time and services (including field trips and food!) to make this program possible:
