College of Arts & Sciences Summer Research Program

Thank you for your interest in Pacific's PRISM Summer Research Program! This program provides Pacific undergraduates in the natural and social sciences with the opportunity to do research closely and collaboratively with a faculty member during the summer. It is highly recommended that you contact faculty members with whom you might be interested in working and discussing the possibility of collaborating with them in conjunction with submitting an application. Requirements will depend on the individual faculty member and the nature of the research project. However, it is not unusual for students to begin working as early as the summer after the freshman year.

Student researchers are paid a stipend for which they are required to work a minimum of 35 hours per week for 10 weeks during the summer. Exact start and end dates are flexible and will be negotiated between the student researcher and their faculty mentor. On campus housing is available to summer research students at a discounted rate.

Students may also work on summer research as volunteers at the discretion of faculty mentors. (If you are willing to work as a volunteer, you may indicate so on the application form.)

Additionally, students receiving a PRISM stipend are expected to attend a weekly summer lunch-time seminar and make a presentation to their peers at one of these seminars.  In the subsequent fall semester, all students receiving PRISM support are also required to present a poster at the Pacific Undergraduate Research Conference. 

Application for Summer Research

The first step in applying for the PRISM Summer Research Program is to complete an online application form. The application includes the opportunity to list your research interests and requires that you provide one or two references. You must also upload your current CV.  The deadline for applications is Friday March 20, 2020.

All student applications are forwarded to faculty mentors. The faculty mentors will contact candidate student researchers for interviews. The faculty mentors make the final decision as to which students they hire for the summer. Decisions are typically made sometime in April.

Given the large number of applications we receive, we will not be able to individually contact each student applicant. We will do our best to send out mass-emails to all applicants in order to keep everyone informed about how the process progresses.