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, Chemistry, Microbiology, 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 Biology. The Gerson lab studies integrative eco-physiology with a focus on the environmental physiology of birds.
June 28 – August 8, 2026
Research Intensive in Biology. This research experience in the Karlstrom Lab will include working with zebrafish as a model animal system to examine nervous system development, growth, and the regulation of neural stem cell proliferation.
June 28 - August 8, 2026
Research Intensive in Biochemistry. The Cheung lab's primary interest is understanding how plants reproduce to make seeds.
June 28 - August 8, 2026
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 28 - August 8, 2026
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 28 - August 8, 2026
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 28 - August 8, 2026
Research Intensive in Chemistry. The Lin Lab is interested in (1) fragment-based electronic structure method, (2) multi-configurational diabatization method, (3) non-adiabatic quantum dynamics method, and (4) data-driven semi-empirical method.
June 28 – August 8, 2026
Research Intensive in Chemistry. The You lab creates and studies nucleic acid-based tools for various analytical and chemical biology applications.
June 28 – August 8, 2026
Research Intensive in Psychological and Brain Sciences. The Karatsoreos Lab studies the effects of disrupted timing on immune function, metabolism, and neural communication at the levels of cells, organs, physiology, and behavior.
June 28 – August 8, 2026
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 28 - August 8, 2026