Erickson Discovery Grant
One way to continue to build your research skills is to apply for the Erickson Discovery Grant to fund an independent project of your own choosing and then present a poster of your work. The Erickson Discovery Grant is designed to provide summer funding to start, continue, or finish an independent project. An independent project can be on any topic but should be one that is your idea or one where you are taking the lead. You should not be proposing to spend your summer primarily assisting a graduate student or faculty member in completing their project.
The University Libraries has created this worksheet to help you in starting to identify potential research questions and mapping out your project.
Applications for summer 2025 grants closed in February.
Background
The Rodney A. Erickson Discovery Grant Program, named in honor of Penn State's seventeenth President, supports undergraduate student engagement in original research, scholarship, and creative work under the direct supervision of a research mentor.
Forty-three Erickson Discovery Grants were awarded for summer 2024.
The Erickson Discovery Grants are directed to student-initiated projects in the arts, engineering, humanities, sciences, and social sciences that provide experience in all facets of the research, scholarship, or creative processes. This includes conceptualization of a question or focus, proposal writing, identification and implementation of methods, and communication of results (reporting, exhibition, or performance). Projects should be primarily the student's own work; although the project may be related to the supervising faculty member's research or scholarly interests, it should not simply provide assistance to faculty work.
Grants may be used to cover living expenses and project costs (supplies, materials, books, specialized software, travel for the purpose of data collection, etc.). Note: Funds will be deposited to student accounts and therefore may have an impact on student aid or be applied to outstanding charges.
Eligibility
- Current undergraduate
- Must have at least one semester remaining after the funded summer
- Research must have a Penn State mentor
- Not have accepted an Erickson Discovery Grant previously
- Work outside of the proposed project must be limited to fifteen hours per week. The grant is designed to offer enough funding so that your project can be your main focus.
Application
The submission deadline for 2025 Erickson Discovery Grants has passed.
A completed application consists of the following:
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Two-page research proposal (single- or double-spaced) that addresses the following:
- The question or goal to be addressed and its relevance to the discipline or field. Proposals for creative projects should describe the academic nature of the work.
- The methods or processes that will be used to address the question or goal
- Why the project is of interest to the student and their preparation to complete it
- How supervision by the faculty member will contribute to the student’s project
- Name and contact information of the research supervisor, so that the supervisor can be contacted to provide a letter of support that includes an evaluation of the proposal and the student’s ability to complete the project
Citations supporting the research topic may be included with the research proposal as a separate, third page.
Review Criteria
Applications are reviewed by faculty within your area of expertise. Review criteria include:
- Scholarly nature – Does the project involve research, scholarship, or creative work? (Educational or personal enrichment activities – e.g. study abroad, travel unrelated to research, projects not grounded in an academic discipline, etc., do not apply.)
- Student engagement – Did the student help to frame the question or focus of the project and will the student activities involve the major steps in the research or creative process? (Projects should not merely provide assistance to the faculty supervisor's work.)
- Faculty collaboration – Will the faculty supervisor provide a level of supervision that guides the student's work and adds value to the project?
- Faculty recommendation – Does the faculty supervisor consider the project worthwhile academically and endorse the student's ability to complete it?
Timeline
The competition cycle for the 2025 Erickson Discovery Grant has closed. Results will be announced mid-March.
Questions about the Erickson Discovery Grant Program should be directed to Alan Rieck, associate vice president and associate dean for undergraduate education, at 814-863-1864 or ajr83@psu.edu.
2024 Recipients
- Elizabeth Aichele, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences — Establishing a Connection Between Glass Chemistry and Plastic Deformation in LionGlass
- Melahat Akdemir, Penn State Harrisburg — What are police officers in Pennsylvania doing for their own mental health?
- Natalia Ali, Penn State Shenango — Cheatgrass Below Ground invasion
- Zachary Allamon, Eberly College of Science — Boundary-Value Solutions to the Forced Soliton Equation
- Taha Alubaidi, Eberly College of Science — Chemical Chaperones
- Derek Baldwin, Eberly College of Science — Investigating the Impact of Temporal Proximity on the Efficacy of a Memory Update
- Camilla Baumer, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences — Impacts of the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull Eruption on Long-Term Health in Iceland
- Alex Baxevanidis, Eberly College of Science — Identification of a transcription attenuation mechanism controlling yrhG expression in Bacillus subtilis
- Lucas Beddick, Penn State Fayette — Self-Compassion as a Predictor of Tendencies for Prosocial Behavior
- Alex Butzler, Eberly College of Science — Dual Emission System of Fluorescent Dye and Folic Acid Carbon Quantum Dots at Near Neutral pH
- Adrien Chen, Eberly College of Science — Oxidative stress impact on Kinesin KIF1A structure and function. An in-vitro analysis.
- Charles Colvin, College of Agricultural Sciences — Beyond Pigments: A Microbial Tale of Flavonoid-Induced Phyllosphere Changes in Maize
- Jonathan Cui, College of Engineering — Explainable Artificial Intelligence in Medical Image Analysis
- Alexander Czeczulin, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences — Geoheritage of the National Parks
- Tyler Duda, Penn State Fayette — Simulating Magnetic Monopole Interactions for Higher-Rank Gauge Groups
- Ankita Dasgupta, Eberly College of Science — Determining the physical parameters of astrophysical tau neutrinos discovered by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
- Garret Diven, Eberly College of Science — Investigating Gene Variants in VACTERL Association: Their Effect on the Aging Trajectory of C. elegans
- Isaac Gray, Eberly College of Science — Model Membranes with Cardiolipin as the Major Component
- Kaelea Hayes, College of Engineering — Dynamic Modeling and Experimental Testing of a Shape Memory Alloy Cooling Device
- Mikayla Hribal, Eberly College of Science — Dissecting the Role of a DNA Damage Response Factor in Gene Expression
- Grace Jacobs, Penn State Altoona — Understanding Relationships in Veterans Affairs Adult Foster Care
- Rutuj Kankaria, College of Engineering — The Impact of Social Intrapreneurship on Corporate Financial Performance
- Aditya Khemka, College of Engineering — Utilizing Machine Learning, Social Determinants of Health and Longitudinal Data to Predict Alzheimer's Disease Susceptibility
- Heejung Koo, Eberly College of Science — Gut Feelings: Investigating the Role of Bacteriophage on the Gut Microbiome
- Stefan Leovac, Eberly College of Science — Tetralin Derivative Synthesis via Photo-Redox C-H Radical Cyclization
- Abigayle Lipscomb, Penn State Erie, The Behrend College — Effects of cortisol on the expression of iron transport proteins and extracellular vesicles
- Kylie (Ky) McKenna, College of Arts and Architecture — Turning Silver to Gold: Demystifying the Luster Technique in American Ceramics
- Duncan McQueen, Eberly College of Science — Impact of Aging on the Tensile Properties of Photothermally Cured Polymer Systems
- Adrian Michael, College of Engineering — Extrude Honing of Additively Manufactured Triply Periodic Minimum Surface Lattice Heat Exchangers
- Greta Miller, College of Arts and Architecture — From Fiber to Form: Experimental Textiles using Traditional and Alternative Fibers
- Nathan Murarik, Penn State Erie, The Behrend College — Accurate Power Method Utilizing Compensated Arithmetic
- Kimberly Nicholas, Penn State Berks — Real Problems in Fake Worlds
- Evan Paulson, College of the Liberal Arts — The Western Hemisphere Indigenous Reference Library(WHIRL)
- Lauren Peng, Penn State Altoona — Optimizing Managerial Approaches Through Plasticity
- Anant Pothakamury, Eberly College of Science — Investigating the Influence of the Host-Gut Microbiome Interactions on NAD+ Metabolism during Intestinal Inflammation
- Anisha Prabhu, Eberly College of Science — Investigating the Role of Reactive Oxygen Species in the 16p12.1 Deletion
- Luc Schrauf, Eberly College of Science — Low-Cost Quartz Tuning Fork as Atomic Force Microscope Sensor
- Sarah Scott, Eberly College of Science — The impact of prenatal and postpartum vitamin D supplementation on cholecalciferol concentrations in breast milk.
- Eugene Seok, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences — Optimizing Barium Zirconate Titanate Through Combined Composition and Strain Engineering
- Nathan Tam, Penn State Berks — Computational analysis of the decarboxylation mechanism in aromatic compounds: effects of proximal substituents
- Milan Varia, Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications — The Echo Project
- Thanvanth Vinodh Kumar, Eberly College of Science — Comparative memory of a model particle suspension
- Matthew Visomirski, Eberly College of Science — Predicting Species Coexistence and Quasi-Periodicity via Graph Combinatorics