Research Intensives
Our competitive six-week summer Research Intensives program places high-achieving high school students in professional working labs alongside distinguished faculty, graduate and undergraduate students. We offer placements in Biology, Biochemistry, Engineering, Psychology and Food Science.
Students eligible to apply should have grades of B or above in mathematics and science courses. Applicants should indicate their top three lab choices and reason for interest in the personal statement portion of the application.
Research Intensives are part of our Residential Pre-College Programs, and take place at the UMass Amherst campus. Residential programs at UMass combine all the major elements of college, including great academics, living in a residence hall, and eating in our award-winning dining commons. Of course, it takes a little help to adjust to life on a college campus, so we have live-in resident counselors who are specially trained to help you get used to a new environment. We have lots of fun events in the evenings and on weekends that help you connect with other pre-college students.
Available Lab Opportunities
Research Intensive in Electrical and Computer Engineering. The UMass⁺ Ion lab microfabricates chips in the UMass cleanrooms for trapped ion quantum computing.
June 29 - August 9, 2025
Research Intensive in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. The Liu Lab develops bioelectronics—devices that match the softness of biological tissue to enable seamless integration with the body.
June 29 - August 9, 2025
Research Intensive in Biochemistry. Plants and animals frequently engage microbes in mutualistic interactions, some of which have significant impacts on our society and the ecosystem.
June 29 - August 9, 2025
Research Intensive in Biochemistry. The Cheung lab's primary interest is understanding how plants reproduce to make seeds.
June 29 - August 9, 2025
Research Intensive in Biochemistry. Students will have opportunities to grow plants, monitor plant-fungal interactions using microfluid devices, characterize interactions using our automated phenotyping pipeline, and conduct bioinformatics studies.
June 29 - August 9, 2025
Research Intensive in Food Science. The current epidemic of obesity cannot be explained completely by the dietary, social and/or behavioral changes that have occurred over the past several decades.
June 29 - August 9, 2025
Research Intensive in Biology. The Adler lab studies how floral traits, including shape, size and rewards, affect pollinator health and pathogen transmission.
June 29 - August 9, 2025
Research Intensive in Biology. The focus of the Riley Laboratory is the identification if novel bacteriocin-based antimicrobials for use in human health and agriculture.
June 29 - August 9, 2025
Research Intensive in Biology. Cell division is a physical process when the genome - distributed across the replicated chromosomes - is equally separated prior to cleavage into two daughter cells.
June 29 - August 9, 2025
Research Intensive in Microbiology. The Morita Lab uses techniques in molecular biology, biochemistry, cell biology, and genetics to decipher the mechanisms employed by mycobacteria that make them survive in our human body and persist even after a long antibiotic treatment.
June 29 - August 9, 2025
Research Intensive in Psychological and Brain Sciences. Our lab focuses on investigating the neural bases of decision making, how it changes during development, and the sociocultural factors influencing the behavior.
June 29 – August 9, 2025
Research Intensive in Environmental & Soil Chemistry. Plastic pollution in wastewater and sewage sludge poses significant environmental and agricultural challenges, especially as these waste streams are increasingly reused for irrigation and land application.
June 29 - August 9, 2025