Two faculty committees have pared down a field of 102 applicants to a final list of 50 students who will participate in this year's Summer Scholars Program.
The selected students will pursue a range of independent projects that run the gamut from studying adopted children's artwork to measuring muscle mass loss in Puerto Ricans living in Boston.
According to Kate Nash, the program director of advising and scholarship programs at Tufts, the number of students who apply is usually somewhere in the 90s.
"This year was our biggest applicant pool," she said.
During the selection process, the applicants were divided into two categories based on the subject matter of their proposed projects. Students interested in the humanities were evaluated by one faculty committee and those interested in math, science or engineering were looked at by the other.
According to Nash, the humanities pool supplied 45 applicants and the math, science and engineering pool accounted for the other 57.
Of the 50 students who were selected, only one opted not to participate in the program, highlighting the strong commitment of this year's applicants.
"Last year we had five people turn down their applications," Nash said. "The fact that only one person was unable to do it this year speaks well [for] the program."
The students who chose to participate will work with a faculty member from the School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Engineering or any graduate school for eight weeks of intensive research this summer.
"It serves to knit the schools together with the common goal of undergraduate research," Nash said.
Students receive a $3,500 stipend, which functions as "their salary for the summer," she said. They also receive a $1,000 research stipend in order to pay for costs associated their projects.
According to Nash, the types of research projects undertaken are "really student-driven," meaning that participants have the ability to pursue their interests.
Before submitting an application, each student needed to select a project and find a faculty member to work with. Several of the students came up with their own topics and then approached a faculty member in that field to see if the instructor would be willing to work with them over the summer.
Another option for students who knew they would like to do research, but didn't necessarily have a topic in mind, was to go to the Summer Scholars Web site, according to Nash.
"Faculty members post opportunities on the Web site," she said.
Junior and biology major Steven Dyer followed this route and will be working with Dr. Carmen Castaneda Sceppa from the Friedman School of Nutrition to study the factors affecting the loss of muscle mass in elderly Puerto Ricans in Boston.
"It's a combination of my interests," he said. "[Sceppa has] been doing this type of research and I'm joining her project."
One benefit of the Summer Scholars program is that it can offer students the opportunity to build upon what they have already studied in their courses.
According to Nash, these connections between school work and research can be fostered even after students are finished with the program, as their work could lead to the publication of articles or a senior honors thesis.
Although as of right now, Dyer is not planning on doing a senior honors thesis, it's "something I'm keeping an open mind towards," he said.
Sophomore Brittany Bannon, who will use art to study how adopted children adapt to their new families, also expressed interest in applying her work to future ventures. "I've kind of been throwing around the idea of [going to] graduate school in art therapy," she said.
