Apply to the School of Public Policy Undergraduate Research Experience Program
Research opportunities will be posted here as they become available. The positions below are still open. Faculty are reviewing applications and will respond to inquiries on a rolling basis. While you may apply to more than one UREP position at a time, please only accept one research role within the School of Public Policy in a given semester to ensure opportunities for other students.
If you have your own idea for an independent study, ask your advisor for support in connecting with a sponsoring faculty member.
Fall 2025 | Variable 1 - 3 credits | 3 - 9 hours/week, depending on student availability
Position Description: Are you curious about how philanthropic foundations address social justice in their grantmaking? This fall, join my team to explore the grantmaking decisions of foundations, with a special focus on social justice initiatives and their impact on marginalized communities. As an Undergraduate Research Assistant, you'll play a crucial role in this multi-method study, engaging in tasks such as developing a literature database, analyzing data, and assisting with interview preparations. This opportunity allows you to enhance your research skills through practical experience and methodological training and deepens your understanding of the intersection between philanthropy and social justice. Your involvement is crucial to our goal of examining and potentially improving the ways in which foundation grantmaking can act as a catalyst for positive change. I will provide continuous support and guidance, including pairing you with another URA for peer support and weekly 20-minute check-ins with me to review progress, address challenges, and offer feedback. What You Will Learn: As a nonprofit scholar specializing in philanthropy and collective action, I emphasize a reflective, experiential learning approach in my mentoring, fostering empowerment for change. I am eager to welcome undergraduate students into my research team and offer tailored guidance and support for their academic growth. The project will provide the URAs with hands-on experience in quantitative and qualitative research. They will also gain a deeper insight into social justice issues within the realm of philanthropy, current grantmaking practices, social justice initiatives in grantmaking, and the impact of funding on marginalized communities. URA will also help in documenting and organizing research findings and reports. The project will provide the URAs with hands-on experience in quantitative and qualitative research. They will also gain a deeper insight into social justice issues within the realm of philanthropy, current grantmaking practices, social justice initiatives in grantmaking, and the impact of funding on marginalized communities. URA will also help in documenting and organizing research findings and reports. Prerequisites: Must be a rising junior or senior. How to Apply: Please send me (Professor Wu - @email) your resume, unofficial transcript and cover letter if you are interested in joining my team to work on this important research.
Research assistants will help Professors Collins, Rice, and Rhodes collect information about depictions of law and legality in LGBTQ+ media, such as The Advocate. This will involve reading articles in LGBTQ+ media and coding the articles based on things like the types of rights featured in the articles (e.g., same sex marriage, employment), court decisions discussed in the articles, and the legal and political actors depicted in the articles. The objective of this research is to understand what legal issues are prominent on the agenda of LGBTQ+ media and how the legal consciousness of the LGBTQ+ community changes over time.
Students must be available for weekly meetings that will be held in person on Tuesdays from 9:30-10:30 throughout the semester.
Supervisor: Paul Collins
Contact Email: pmcollins@umass.edu
Prerequisites: Legal 250 or equivalent
Application instructions: Please send an email to Professor Collins (pcollins@umass.edu) with a resume, description of relevant skills, expression of interest, and the name of a faculty member reference.
Fall 2025 | Variable 2 credits | 6 hours/week
Position Description: I am looking for an undergrad research assistant to work on a paper and/or possible book chapter on legal politics in the Middle East, and/or the international law of genocide and other war crimes in comparative perspective. What You Will Learn: Student will learn substantive material about international law, comparative law, and Middle Eastern politics, as well as logical inference and qualitative analysis skills, possibly including nVivo. Prerequisites: Would prefer a junior or senior with language skills in Arabic, French and/or Hebrew, and some familiarity with comparative/international law and politics, as well as completion of MES/SPP 151. However, I am open to good and thoughtful students. How to Apply: Students should send Professor Mednicoff a resume and brief cover letter with their intellectual interests: mednic@umass.edu.
Before Applying...
Have you had your resume and cover letter reviewed by SBS Pathways? During the semester, there are walk-in hours with Peer Advisors in Thompson 128 (M, T, W 10-4 and Th, F 10 - 2) to get you started.
Frequently Asked Questions
By participating in a UREP students work collaboratively with faculty to develop studies with real‐world significance and to carry them out with practical, readily transferable skills that will provide them with a crucial edge in the job market. Students who gain sophisticated research skills will be highly sought after by potential employers: they will understand how to conduct research; how to choose and use the appropriate qualitative or quantitative methods to carry out studies; how to work collaboratively towards a common goal; and how to write effectively in order to convey their findings to the public. These students will be able to not only tell potential employers about the classes they took, but clearly indicate on their resumes and in their interviews the deliverables that they helped produce. Furthermore, these students will gain critical information about substantive public policy and legal topics that will offer them an advantage in competing for internships and jobs in public policy or the civil service.
Student researchers are encouraged to present the research conducted through the UREP at conferences like the Massachusetts Statewide Undergraduate Research Conference. They receive opportunities to co-author reports, and they are able to incorporate the skills and methodology learned through the program into their capstone or thesis projects. Most importantly, the UREP is a unique opportunity which students can include on their resumes as they apply for graduate school or enter the workforce.
The topics and projects that have already been advanced through the UREP reflect the breadth of faculty expertise in the School of Public Policy. In past semesters, for instance, the students have been trained to construct and manage public opinion surveys and analyze data through the UMass Poll; to draft in-depth literature reviews about sanitation reform in India; to conduct archival research on the death penalty; and to compile and analyze a database of the ratification of international environmental treaties – just to name a few projects!
The UREP projects are compensated through academic credit, not a paycheck. Students selected to participate in UREP will be enrolled in SPP or LEGAL 398R - Research Practicum. Students may take up to 18 practicum credits while at UMass. Those credits may count toward the total needed for graduation.
For Legal Studies majors, the research credits do not count toward major requirements.
For Public Policy majors, a maximum of 4 credits of applied coursework - research credits and/or internship credits - may count toward major requirements.
In general, 1 credit hour is equivalent to about 40 hours of work (3 hours per week) during the semester and students may enroll for up to 4 credits per semester.