Summer Research Opportunities

Molecular modeling, or computational chemistry, is a broadly applicable research pursuit without a required association to experiment. Molecular modeling encompasses all theoretical and computational methodologies used to model or mimic the behavior of molecules. Modeling techniques are routinely used in the fields of drug design, computational biology and materials science to investigate the structure, dynamics, surface properties, and thermodynamics of inorganic, biological, and polymeric systems.

Molecular modeling is a predictive technique but most predictions are validated by experiment. On the other hand, experimental data is prone to error and misinterpretation. Molecular modeling provides additional, often not experimentally attainable, data to solve scientific problems more completely and can explain unusual experimental results. The combination of both experimental and computational techniques provide an excellent toolkit to probe the atomic structure and behavior of materials, new and known. In short, experiment tells us what the molecules are doing and modelling helps us understand why.

In this SIR, we will
* Become familiar with molecular modeling programs, databases, and online resources.
* Understand the factors to consider in creating and validating a structural model of a chemical compound.
* Apply Molecular Modeling to predict the physical properties of a chemical compound, e.g., geometric structure, molecular energy, dipole moment, reaction energies, molecular orbital energy differences, etc.
* Compare experimental data with calculational data, e.g., the IR spectrum characterizing the molecular structure, the predicted Heat of Formation (H°f) using an Isodesmic reaction, and the predicted Heat of Reaction (ΔHrxn) for a practical chemical reaction.
* Prepare scientific publications both oral and written.

Prerequisites: IMSA “Scientific Inquiry - Chemistry” level knowledge of chemistry; Basic use of laptop computer including ability to download software
Category of Study: Chemistry
Organization: IMSA, Aurora Campus
Dates + Times: July 7 - 18, 2025
Housing/Transportation: Students provide transportation to the IMSA Aurora campus. Students will reside in the IMSA residence halls and receive all meals.
Positions Available: 20
Primary Mentor: Dr. Joe Golab, Chemistry faculty

Note: The IMSA programs will be fee-based this summer at a rate of $1200/wk for the on-campus portions of the program. Scholarships are available for eligible students.

Students will identify the effects of natural compounds such as turmeric and cinnamon on diabetic blood and urine. Hyperglycemic blood and urine will be created by adding different amounts of glucose to lab-created, simulated blood and urine. Students will study the effects of natural compounds in reducing glucose concentration k. Both blood and urine, and then project their knowledge through experimentation. Students will use the same concentrations of 4 spices known to reduce glucose levels ( more can be added after discussion with students). The students will identify the effects of turmeric, ginger, curcumin and cinnamon on simulated diabetic blood and urine by measuring the concentration of glucose in blood and urine will to see what effect these compounds have in reducing glucose concentration. Differences between the effects of the individual compounds on simulated blood and urine will also be studied and conclusions drawn based on evidence. Once the best candidate for reducing glucose concentration has been identified for both blood and urine (they might be different), students will proceed to further study these compounds by testing the effect of different concentrations on blood and urine and draw conclusions based on evidence from their project. Students will also be responsible for providing suggestions for further research. This project will give students an overall idea of diabetes ( a rising concern among youth) and how ingesting natural compounds can help prevent or manage this condition.
Prerequisites: A basic knowledge of biology.
Category of Study: Chemistry
Organization: IMSA, Aurora Campus
Dates + Times: July 7 - 25, 2025
Housing/Transportation: Students provide transportation to the IMSA Aurora campus. Students will reside in the IMSA residence halls and receive all meals.
Positions Available: 20
Primary Mentor: Dr. Sowmya Anjur, Former IMSA Biology Faculty

Note: The IMSA programs will be fee-based this summer at a rate of $1200/wk for the on-campus portions of the program. Scholarships are available for eligible students.

This project would involve generating Monte Carlo events that simulate events that could occur at the Large Hadron Collider. We would then analyze them by comparing histograms of various quantities to see which ones would do a good job of separating signal from background, and then construct a series of cuts that are designed to do just that. If there is time, which I doubt but is a possibility, we can look at Monte Carlo that has been processed by a detector simulation and talk about the messiness of real-world physics and calculate some efficiencies and systematic uncertainties. While my research group’s work is in C++, I think I would do this in Python as much as possible to reduce the overhead for the students.
Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of Python
Category of Study: Physics
Organization: IMSA, Aurora Campus
Dates + Times: June 30 - July 11, 2025
Housing/Transportation: Students provide transportation to the IMSA Aurora campus. Students will reside in the IMSA residence halls and receive all meals.
Positions Available: 20
Primary Mentor: Dr. Peter Dong, Physics faculty

Note: The IMSA programs will be fee-based this summer at a rate of $1200/wk for the on-campus portions of the program. Scholarships are available for eligible students.

The creation and production of an artistic performance video that explores a specific research subject within the umbrella of STEM.

Work Student(s) will Complete: Artistic planning, designing, writing, story-boarding, model-building, video production planning and execution, and performance of a musically-based three to four-minute video that both entertains and educates. "Edutainment" at its best.

Prerequisites: None
Category of Study: Theater
Organization: Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Dates + Times: June 8 - 21, 2025
Housing/Transportation: Students requiring transportation will be provided with round-trip service from IMSA's Aurora campus. Students will reside on the campus of SIUC and receive all meals.
Positions Available: 1-4
Primary Mentor: Matthew Williams, Assistant Professor of Theater & Dance

There are two continuously broadband seismic stations on Carbondale campus. The data for both are used for routinely locating moderate to large earthquakes regionally and globally, but are largely unused beyond that. I'd like to do a pilot survey of the data to find determine the fidelity of local signals in the data such as lightning strikes.

Work Student(s) will Complete: The student(s) would be using seismic data from the Carbondale campus to find lightning strikes or other local signals in a 2-3 week window known to have thunderstorms. Waveforms and duration coupled with estimates of location may tell us about both the fidelity of recording these signals but will also show the range of variability in lightning waveforms and potentially whether there is measurable energy that travels in the ground (far faster) to the stations in addition to the air.

Prerequisites: None
Category of Study: Geology
Organization: Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Dates + Times: June 8 - 21, 2025
Housing/Transportation: Students requiring transportation will be provided with round-trip service from IMSA's Aurora campus. Students will reside on the campus of SIUC and receive all meals.
Positions Available: 1-2
Primary Mentor: James Conder, Professor of Geology

Biostimulants is a general broad category given to chemicals that upregulates the biochemical activities of living systems. For our interests we want to understand how biostimulants cause soil and digestate microorganisms to accelerate their biochemical process. First we need to understand the conditions by which microbe and biostimulants are beneficial.

Work Student(s) will Complete: Standard microbiology techniques will be used culture, count, and assess under which biostimulant application causes microbes to increase diversity, chemical output, and population number.

Prerequisites: None
Category of Study: Microbiology
Organization: Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Dates + Times: June 8 - 21, 2025
Housing/Transportation: Students requiring transportation will be provided with round-trip service from IMSA's Aurora campus. Students will reside on the campus of SIUC and receive all meals.
Positions Available: 1-2
Primary Mentor: Scott Hamilton-Brehm, Associate Professor of Microbiology

The covalent functionalization of transition metal dichalcogenides for biosensing applications is an underexplored area. We want to leverage the large bandgap of TMD materials to develop highly sensitive biosensing platforms for the detection of more than sixty neurodegenerative diseases.

Work Student(s) will Complete: The high school students will be funtionalizing TMD surfaces by a electrochemical simple method. They will help optimize the functionalization by varying experimental conditions.

Prerequisites: None
Category of Study: Chemistry
Organization: Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Dates + Times: June 8 - 21, 2025
Housing/Transportation: Students requiring transportation will be provided with round-trip service from IMSA's Aurora campus. Students will reside on the campus of SIUC and receive all meals.
Positions Available: 1-2
Primary Mentor: Mohtashim Shamsi, Associate Professor of Chemistry

Ground-penetrating Radar (GPR) is a non-intrusive method of geophysical surveying to investigate a variety of subsurface objects and structures. For example archaeological sites, gravesites, caverns, groundwater, bedrock geology, and manmade infrastructure have been studied. This pioneering research explores using GPR to image subsurface crayfish burrows without inflicting any harm or damage. Ongoing SIU research is attempting to further improve these strategies and to develop 3D imaging to learn more about elusive crayfish burrowing and ecology below the surface.

Work Student(s) will Complete: Student(s) will join the IUS Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) research team during the spring semester and receive training. Afterwards and during the summer, student(s) will collect Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) data above endangered crayfish habitats. Students will then process, analyze, and interpret the GPR results. Students will present their results at a student symposium, and submit an abstract or summary for conference presentation and possible publication.

Prerequisites: None
Category of Study: Geology
Organization: Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Dates + Times: June 8 - 21, 2025
Housing/Transportation: Students requiring transportation will be provided with round-trip service from IMSA's Aurora campus. Students will reside on the campus of SIUC and receive all meals.
Positions Available: 1-3
Primary Mentor: Harvey Henson, Associate Professor of Geology

Organic synthesis of analgesic drugs.

Prerequisites: General and organic chemistry
Category of Study: Chemistry
Organization: Western Illinois University
Dates + Times: July 6 - July 18, 2025
Housing/Transportation: Students will reside in an on-campus residence hall under the supervision of the WIU Residence Life staff. All meals will be provided.
Positions Available: 1-2
Primary Mentor: Shaozhong Zhang, Assistant Professor

Humans are influencing the water cycle in numerous ways; one significant way humans alter the natural flow of rivers and streams is through the construction of dams and reservoirs. As a result, the water we observe flowing in our rivers today may not reflect its natural state. These regulated flows can obscure important information about how environmental and climatic changes affect water systems. One method used to address this is streamflow naturalization, a process that helps isolate the impacts of management and regulations, allowing us to better understand changes in water flow over time. In this project, students will learn key techniques to naturalize streamflow and analyze their results in the context of water resource management. As part of the study, they will conduct a case study focusing on a watershed in Illinois.

Student Responsibilities and Expectations: Students are expected to actively engage in both the online and in-person components of the program. This includes completing all assigned preparatory readings, literature review, and exercises to ensure a solid foundation for the research. Participants will collect, process, and analyze publicly available hydrological data, applying the techniques they have learned throughout the project. At the end of the program, students will present their findings in a final research report or presentation, demonstrating their understanding and interpretation of the research project. The following are some specific expectations for students:

• A strong commitment to learning hydrological concepts, including the impacts of dam infrastructure.
• Basic understanding of data analysis and the willingness to engage with tools like GIS.
• Professional conduct during the entire phase of the project.
• Complete all assignments on time and attend all probable program activities.

Prerequisites: N/A
Category of Study: Computer Science
Organization: Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Dates + Times: July 6 - July 25, 2025, 2 weeks remote and 3 weeks at SIUE/lab/field setting
Housing/Transportation: Students requiring transportation will be provided with round-trip service from IMSA's Aurora campus. Students will reside on the campus of SIUE and receive all meals.
Positions Available: 1-2
Primary Mentor: Sanoar Rahman, Assistant Professor

Students will have the opportunity to participate in a (spatial) data science project,
including data engineering, spatial, temporal and statistical analysis, and visualization, using the Illinois Department of Public Health’s Vital Statistics data set.

Public health agencies, such as the Illinois Department of Public Health, collect vast
amounts of data at the county level over time, often stored in formats like CSV or PDF, making it difficult to grasp spatial and temporal patterns. These datasets are critical for health professionals and policymakers, who rely on data-driven intelligence to make informed decisions. The process of transforming raw data into actionable insights requires the use of spatial data science techniques, including data engineering, spatial analysis, temporal analysis, statistical analysis, visualization tools, and geospatial technology.

Student Responsibilities and Expectations: Students will participate in scheduled daily activities and complete the required tasks for the two-week remote online precursor; Students will need to be able to come to the SIUE campus for the three-week in-person research project.

Prerequisites: N/A
Category of Study: Computer Science
Organization: Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Dates + Times: July 6 - July 25, 2025, 2 weeks remote and 3 weeks at SIUE/lab/field setting
Housing/Transportation: Students requiring transportation will be provided with round-trip service from IMSA's Aurora campus. Students will reside on the campus of SIUE and receive all meals.
Positions Available: 1-2
Primary Mentor: Dr. Shunfu Hu, Professor of Geography

The General Data Protection Regulation mandates that websites utilizing cookies not only display a conspicuous notice to users but also grant them the choice to decline information collection. Nevertheless, the efficacy of such informed notices in genuinely benefiting users remains a subject of controversy.

COMMUTER

Prerequisites: 1) Web Scraping - experience with web scraping libraries like BeautifulSoup, Scrapy, or Selenium is desired; 2) Familiarity with programming languages, such as Python; 3) Proficiency in multiple languages, especially for non-English languages, is preferred.
Category of Study: Computer Science
Organization: Discovery Partners Institute (DPI)
Dates + Times: June, July, and August with weekly on-site sessions
Housing/Transportation: Students are responsible for transportation.
Positions Available: 1-2
Primary Mentor: Yuanye Ma

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly impacting many aspects of work, and how people perceive and perform in their workplace. While AI adoption and implementation in various industries has been met with both reluctance and enthusiasm from employees, having varying degrees of knowledge, attitudes, and experiences with AI can hinder effective use of AI. With the increase in multiple AI applications curated to different purposes, organizations are exploring ways to use AI that support the productivity of their workforce. However, this brings forth a constellation of challenges and risks that threaten to compromise the integrity and efficiency of the workforce itself. This project will implement several measures to address the challenges in responsible design, development and deployment of AI safety in the workforce. The project will perform AI safety and workforce development research, conduct stakeholder meetings, develop qualitative and quantitative instruments, conduct data analysis on data from surveys, perform experiments, and evaluate a prototype of a workforce development module for AI safety.

Prerequisites: 1) Python for coding the Responsible AI framework, 2) Docker for deploying software package to run the framework, 3) Statistical analysis for analyzing the surveys and data, 4) Qualitative analysis for analyzing the surveys, 5) Web development for distributing to others to use
Category of Study: Computer Science
Organization: Discovery Partners Institute (DPI)
Dates + Times: June, July, and August with weekly on-site sessions
Housing/Transportation: Students are responsible for transportation.
Positions Available: 1-2
Primary Mentor: Alvin Chin

Analysis of smart phone apps to check if they violate privacy properties specified by their lables. We will employ existing tools and build on them for analysis. The Apps analyzed may be Android apps written in Java or iphone Apps written in swift. May also use LLMs for this purpose.

Prerequisites: Good mathematical and logical skills, Good programming and systems skills
Category of Study: Computer Science
Organization: Discovery Partners Institute (DPI)
Dates + Times: June, July, and August with weekly on-site sessions
Housing/Transportation: Students are responsible for transportation.
Positions Available: 1
Primary Mentor: Prasad Sistla

Developing a web application that validates and standardizes wastewater-based epidemiology data across multiple laboratories. It includes analyzing data to define validation requirements and ensuring data consistency and accuracy in automated wastewater surveillance pipelines. By enhancing data reliability, the project supports scalable and effective public health monitoring.

Prerequisites: Familiarity with Python, and some data analysis skills
Category of Study: Computer Science
Organization: Discovery Partners Institute (DPI)
Dates + Times: June, July, and August with weekly on-site sessions
Housing/Transportation: Students are responsible for transportation.
Positions Available: 1-2
Primary Mentor: Anuj Gautam

Develop a plaform with multimodal bioinformatics methods spanning DNA/RNA sequence to protein structure analysis. The workflows will be designed specific to cannabis related research including, but not limited to, sequence analysis, multiple sequence alignments, transcripton, translation, protein structure prediction, structure analysis, and more.

Prerequisites: 1) Python, 2) (web) application development, 3) interest in biophysics and bioinformatcis!
Category of Study: Computer Science
Organization: Discovery Partners Institute (DPI)
Dates + Times: June, July, and August with weekly on-site sessions
Housing/Transportation: Students are responsible for transportation.
Positions Available: 1-2
Primary Mentor: Sugy

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human learning, comprehension, problem-solving, decision-making, creativity, and autonomy. This definition of AI is supported by IBM (https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/artificial-intelligence). Businesses have shown significant interest in adopting AI technology, and its adoption is expected to grow in the coming years. Similarly, AI has gained traction among educators and students in academia.

It is crucial to investigate the accuracy of information provided by various AI tools. Additionally, when students use AI tools to generate text for assignments, it is important to ensure that educators have reliable tools to detect this usage. However, plagiarism detection tools may produce false positive reports, and advanced technology can manipulate AI-generated text in ways that make it difficult for these tools to determine whether the text was written by a human or a machine.
This project will involve conducting experiments to address the following questions:

• Do different artificial intelligence tools provide consistent information on the same topic?
• Can plagiarism detection tools, such as Turnitin (https://www.turnitin.com/), identify text generated by AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and others available at https://poe.com/?
• Are there strategies or tools that can be used to mimic human writing, even when the text is generated by an AI tool, to make it more challenging for plagiarism detection tools to identify it?

Prerequisites: An understanding of using various artificial intelligence tools, such as Gemini and ChatGPT.
Category of Study: Computer Science
Organization: Western Illinois University
Dates + Times:July 6 - July 18, 2025
Positions Available: 2
Primary Mentor: Tahir Khan, Associate Professor

Hey, high schoolers! Ever dreamed of making your own video game? Now's your chance!
Join our 4-Week Game Design Internship using Python ! No Python experience? No worries! We'll teach you from the ground up-no confusing nerd-speak, just fun and games (literally).

Your Game-Dev Journey:
Week 1: Learn Python (without rage-quitting).
Week 2: Take a classic Pong game and make it your own.
Weeks 3 & 4: Build your own game from scratch and become a legend.

You'll be using Pygame (the secret sauce of indie game devs) and a scaffolded learning approach to make sure you level up fast.

Who Should Apply?
You love video games. (Obviously.)
You want to create your own but don't know where to start.
You have an open mind and can handle a few epic coding fails before the big win.

Prerequisites: None
Category of Study: Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Organization: University of Illinois (UIC)
Dates + Times: TBD
Positions Available: 2-4
Primary Mentor: Pranav Bhounsule, Assistant Professor

This internship covers the study of principles and techniques associated with ergonomic problems to explain and apply human factors engineering concepts in both evaluation of existing systems and design of new systems. The goal is to specify designs that avoid occupation related injuries to identify the basic human sensory, cognitive, and physical capabilities and limitations with respect to human-machine system performance. The course will be based on training and use of the human cad software Santos® as a virtual human model to design and predict human performance while engaged in various processes, thus helping manufacturers design more effective products and systems.

Prerequisites: computers, design if possible (AutoCad, Solidworks, useful but prior knowledge not required)
Category of Study: Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Organization: University of Illinois (UIC)
Dates + Times: June 16, 2025 to August 8, 2025
Positions Available: 4+
Primary Mentor: Dr. Quintin L. Williams Jr., Clinical Associate Professor