As more than 90 students in MIT's SuperUROP Advanced Undergraduate Research Opportunites Program flowed into a year-end certificates presentation event on May 7 at the Media Lab Skyline Room, they looked quite ready to celebrate a year of work on intense research collaborations with faculty advisors, supported as by the generous backing of industry and private sponsors. Senior Ava Soleimany says she has gained a "much-nuanced understanding of what exactly research involves." With an interest in the computational aspects of synthetic biology and its medical applications, Soleimany applied to be a SuperUROP in spring 2014 in Professor Timothy Lu's Synthetic Biology Group. She was able to extend her existing Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) project into a SuperUROP. "It allowed me to hit the ground running in the fall while many of my peers were still sorting out the details of their projects," she notes.

Faculty, students, and industry representatives packed MIT's Grier Room on Thursday, Dec. 4, to learn about new research in robotics, machine learning, wireless power transfer, synthetic biology, and more -- all being conducted by undergraduates through the groundbreaking SuperUROP program within the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). "My feeling is some of this work is as good as master's-quality research. It's very good stuff," said Vincent Chan, the Joan and Irwin M. Jacobs Professor of Electrical Engineering and Aeronautics and Astronautics, who is advising two SuperUROP students this year. "We are creating a community of scholars. As they are exposed to the breadth of research in EECS, their excitement and enthusiasm to engage in research and innovation is contagious," said Anantha Chandrakasan, the Joseph F. and Nancy P. Keithley Professor of Electrical Engineering and EECS department head, who launched the year-long SuperUROP research program in 2012 to expand the experience familiar to many through MIT's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP).