Undergraduate Urban Scholars: Apply Now

This coming spring semester’s Penn IUR’s credit-bearing Undergraduate Urban Research Colloquium (UURC) is accepting applications from undergraduate students interested in engaging in hands-on urban-focused research under the tutelage of mentors drawn from the faculty and advanced PhD candidates throughout the university. The program sponsors up to ten research projects each spring, with grant funds of up to $2,000 available to support travel, materials, or ongoing work in the summer related to new and/or existing research efforts. Students from each of the University’s undergraduate schools (Arts and Sciences, Engineering and Applied Science, Nursing, and Wharton) and faculty and doctoral students from across the University’s 12 schools are eligible to participate. The deadline to apply for the Spring 2022 cohort is December 15. To learn more about, past participants’ work, and for instructions on applying, click here.

The UURC, co-listed by Weitzman School’s Department of City and Regional Planning and the SAS’s Urban Studies Program, combines classroom activities with research. It supports pairs of individual undergraduate students and their mentors who pursue a project they identify together. Each semester, the students meet in a weekly seminar where they learn how to design a research project, and methods of collecting, analyzing, and presenting both quantitative and qualitative data. Each session, faculty from different schools visit the class to introduce students to a variety of ways to conduct urban-centered research.

“I found this course extremely valuable,” said Trae Jordan, who participated in the Spring 2020 program in his senior year while pursuing a B.S. in Economics from The Wharton School. “UURC helped me to better understand the importance of understanding how to read research papers and how to apply research findings to real-world solutions.” Jordan—who studied equity in disaster risk management in Kansas City and Miami (his poster presentation and presentation slides are available on the Penn IUR website) with mentor Sam Geldin, doctoral candidate in City and Regional Planning, Weitzman School of Design and Penn IUR Affiliated Doctoral Student—subsequently enrolled in Penn’s Master of City Planning program, Weitzman School of Design.

Undergraduate Trae Jordan, left, and doctoral candidate Sam Geldin, right collaborated on research into equity in disaster risk management in Kansas City and Miami.

While a member of the Spring 2021 cohort, Adam Goudjil researched, with mentor Mary Rocco, Term Assistant Professor of Urban Studies, Barnard College and Penn IUR Emerging Scholar, the impact philanthropies have on revitalizing small legacy cities. Goudjil, who participated in UURC as a sophomore majoring in Urban Studies, was accepted into this year’s Penn IUR Fellows in Urban Leadership program, which engages a small cohort of selected undergraduates with high-level local, regional, and national leaders drawn from government, business, and civil society to discuss decision-making in urban places. “Because of my experience in UURC, I felt like I was ready to actively be a part of the Fellows program,” he said. “If you’re an undergraduate reading this, I can’t encourage you enough to [apply to UURC.]”

Undergraduate Adam Goudjil, left, worked with Term Assistant Professor of Urban Studies at Barnard College Mary Rocco, right, to research the impact philanthropies have on revitalizing small legacy cities.

In previous years, research projects have ranged from an analysis of barriers to walking in disadvantaged neighborhoods to a study of factors affecting school preferences among parents in West Philadelphia neighborhoods. Student-faculty collaborations have yielded publications including, for example, student Anna Duan’s research with mentor Alex Li, published as “Time-Varying Accessibility to Senior Centers by Public Transit in Philadelphia,” in the in September 2021 issue of Transportation Research Part A, and student Samantha Stein’s co-authorship with mentor Justin Clapp of the op-ed “Death during COVID-19: Redefining Terminal Illness” in the Journal of Medical Ethics blog in June 2020. To learn more about the breadth of research that is eligible and about the projects undertaken by past cohorts, click here.

At the end of the semester, UURC students present the research they pursued over the course of the semester. In spring 2021—an extraordinary year in which the seminar convened online due to COVID-19—instructors added an extra assignment, asking the students to reflect on how the pandemic impacted their research in a blog hosted by Penn IUR.