Mentors play a key role in the success of a student’s participation in the Undergraduate Research Symposium. This means that it’s very important that students keep their mentor(s) informed about the ways they will need to be engaged. We recognize that many students have multiple mentors, including a faculty mentor, graduate student mentors, and mentors that are research staff or post-doctoral researchers. That’s great! Students are required to have at least one faculty mentor but can list additional mentors on their application as well.
Support Abstract and Artist Statements (review and approval)
- Each student will be asked to provide an abstract or artist statement when they submit their Symposium application. We expect that mentors will support students through the writing process. Students and mentors can use our guidelines to compose abstracts or artist statements that are thoughtful and appropriate for this event.
- After the student submits their abstract or artist statements, mentors will be asked to approve each student’s abstract (the application cannot move forward without at least one faculty mentor’s approval). It is much easier for mentors to help students compose their materials before they are submitted than it is to make changes during the approval stage.
- All accepted student abstracts will be published in the Symposium Online Proceedings. Research mentors will be listed along with their students’ abstracts in the Proceedings and will be acknowledged at the presentation sessions.
FAQ
A primary mentor is the individual who approves a student’s application title and abstract/artist statement.
A primary mentor is required to be the most senior research advisor in the project: a professor or principal investigator (PI). For example, as a primary mentor, you might have one of the following titles:
- Assistant Professor
- Associate Professor
- Professor
- Research Professor
- Teaching Professor
- Professor of Clinical Practice
Mentors that have one of the following titles cannot be a primary mentor for the application, but can be a secondary mentor: Lecturer, Instructor, Post-Doc, Grad Student, Fellow, PhD Student, Research Scientist, Staff Scientist, or staff member.
How do I know my title?
To confirm your title, please consult your WorkDay job title, confirm with your supervisor, or consult the Office of Academic Human Resources or Human Resources of your respective institution.
We ask that research mentors approve their students’ abstracts/artists statements. The email should contain a link to our online system where you can read the application and give your approval or ask the student to revise. Note that asking for a revision will NOT harm the student’s chances of being accepted to present.
You will need to create a new EXPO account in order to access our online system, EXPO. You can do this from the EXPO login screen.
While we recognize that most of us already have too many logins to keep track of, creating an EXPO account is very quick and easy and ensures that you will be able to access our system and review your students’ abstracts in a seamless fashion.
Supporting Presentations
We expect that mentors will help students prepare their presentations. This may include mapping out poster design, helping a student practice their oral presentation or performance, or helping the student think through appropriate materials for a design presentation. Many students practice their presentations and get feedback during research team meetings, for example.
FAQ
In the weeks before the Symposium, Office of Undergraduate Research will publish the Online Proceedings on our website, which will allow you to search for your students, find out the times/locations of the presentations, and print a pdf of their abstracts. View the Online Proceedings from previous Symposia.
Volunteer
We hope that mentors will consider volunteering at the Symposium! Each oral presentation session will have a faculty moderator. Please email us at undergradresearch@uw.edu if your faculty mentor is willing to moderate a session. We do our best to ensure faculty can moderate the session that their mentee is presenting in. We hope that additional mentors, including graduate students, will consider volunteering as session assistants or in other important volunteer roles.
View our volunteer opportunities here.