On-Campus Research Opportunities
Applications for 2026 Summer Research are closed at this time.
Pursue research and creative work with Macalester Faculty
Many faculty at Macalester invite students into their research projects, giving students a first-hand opportunity to contribute to cutting-edge scholarly work. Faculty with positions potentially available for students next summer are listed below.
The faculty either already have funding or are awaiting news about whether they will receive funding to hire (a) student(s). Alternatively, students can also apply for a Fellowship to support a research project working with a Macalester faculty mentor.
Macalester Faculty Research Descriptions
Biology
– Diversity and Evolution of Arachnids
– The Paleobiology of Late Cretaceous Dinosaurs and Their Contemporaries
– Ecology at Ordway: An Integrated Summer of Experiential Learning Research
– Evolution of Meta-ecosystems in the Alaskan Arctic
– Optimizing protein precipitation methods in human nail analysis
– Red Nucleus Contributions to Gait and Locomotor Control
Chemistry
– Designing new undergraduate teaching experiments incorporating green聽 chemistry synthesis and sustainable polymers
– Organic Materials Synthesis
– Computational Modeling of Oxygenated Reactive Intermediates in Atmospheric Chemistry
– Research in Bioinorganic Chemistry
– Research in Molecular Spectroscopy
– Catalytic Peptides and Enzyme-polymer Conjugates for Biomedical Applications
Environmental Studies
– Paleoclimate and Oceanography Research Using Deep Sea Sediments
– Effects of Redlining on Water Quality Across the Twin Cities Metro Area
– The Reimagining of the Upper Mississippi
Geography
– Land-use / land-cover change and their impacts on biodiversity in human-modified landscapes
Geology
– The Paleobiology of Late Cretaceous Dinosaurs and Their Contemporaries
– Environmental Change in Glacier National Park, Montana
– Tectonics research
MSCS
– Predictive Processing in Language Production & Comprehension
– Rank Lists of Zig-Zag Matrices for Quiver Representations
-鈥淒eep Learning for Robot Navigation鈥
– Drawing from Life in Extended Reality: Advancing Cross-Reality User Interfaces for Observational 3D Sketching
– Statistical genetics in populations with mixed ancestry
– Math Corps camp and/or Numerical Methods for Fluid Flows
– Design and Evaluation of Computing Workshops for Professional Non-programmers
– Topological Data Analysis of Knowledge Networks
– Characterizing Unclassified Sequence Reads in Metagenomics Data
Neuroscience/Psychology
– Assessing the impact of reward change on Pavlovian conditioned approach behavior in rats
Physics
– Observational Astronomy
– Ultrafast Optical Spectroscopy of Novel Photoconductors
– Extragalactic Magnetic Fields
Sociology
– Placemaking under Surveillance: Transnational Latine Communities in the Midwest
Spanish and Portuguese
– Placemaking under Surveillance: Transnational Latine Communities in the Midwest