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

Boyer– Diversity and Evolution of Arachnids

Curry Rogers– The Paleobiology of Late Cretaceous Dinosaurs and Their Contemporaries

Dosch/Anderson– Ecology at Ordway: An Integrated Summer of Experiential Learning Research

Heskel– Evolution of Meta-ecosystems in the Alaskan Arctic

Rivera– Optimizing protein precipitation methods in human nail analysis

Twedell– Red Nucleus Contributions to Gait and Locomotor Control

Chemistry

Buenaflor– Designing new undergraduate teaching experiments incorporating green chemistry synthesis and sustainable polymers

Cao– Organic Materials Synthesis

Kuwata– Computational Modeling of Oxygenated Reactive Intermediates in Atmospheric Chemistry

Splan– Research in Bioinorganic Chemistry

Varberg– Research in Molecular Spectroscopy

Witus– Catalytic Peptides and Enzyme-polymer Conjugates for Biomedical Applications

Environmental Studies

Bradtmiller– Paleoclimate and Oceanography Research Using Deep Sea Sediments

Bratt– Effects of Redlining on Water Quality Across the Twin Cities Metro Area

Phadke– The Reimagining of the Upper Mississippi

Geography

Haro-Carrión– Land-use / land-cover change and their impacts on biodiversity in human-modified landscapes

Geology

Curry Rogers– The Paleobiology of Late Cretaceous Dinosaurs and Their Contemporaries

MacGregor– Environmental Change in Glacier National Park, Montana

Chapman– Tectonics research

MSCS

Arehalli– Predictive Processing in Language Production & Comprehension

Diaz– Rank Lists of Zig-Zag Matrices for Quiver Representations

Fox-“Deep Learning for Robot Navigation”

Jackson– Drawing from Life in Extended Reality: Advancing Cross-Reality User Interfaces for Observational 3D Sketching

Grinde– Statistical genetics in populations with mixed ancestry

Mitchell– Math Corps camp and/or Numerical Methods for Fluid Flows

Peña– Design and Evaluation of Computing Workshops for Professional Non-programmers

Ziegelmeier– Topological Data Analysis of Knowledge Networks

Onsongo– Characterizing Unclassified Sequence Reads in Metagenomics Data

Neuroscience/Psychology

Maddux– Assessing the impact of reward change on Pavlovian conditioned approach behavior in rats

Physics

Cannon– Observational Astronomy

Heyman– Ultrafast Optical Spectroscopy of Novel Photoconductors

Williams– Extragalactic Magnetic Fields

Sociology

Muñoz and Busse-Cárdenas– Placemaking under Surveillance: Transnational Latine Communities in the Midwest

Spanish and Portuguese