About HURA
A 2006 report entitled “Undergraduate Research Experiences at Harvard” found that many students found research to be one of the most rewarding experiences they encountered at Harvard. However, the same report also found that many undergraduates felt that research was never actively promoted within Harvard. The Harvard Undergraduate Research Association (HURA) was founded in 2007 in response to this study with the mission of building an interdisciplinary research community among undergraduate students, and promoting undergraduate research.
Introduction
Since its inception in 2007, the Harvard Undergraduate Research Association’s main mission has been to foster an interdisciplinary research community among Harvard undergraduates. We have watched this community grow over the years and we are delighted with how Harvard’s research networks and available opportunities have expanded. We hope this trend continues and as always, we are excited to field and offer new initiatives to help promote undergraduate research.
Campus Initiatives
In accordance with our mission, HURA features a number of on-campus programs to help students get involved with research and to provide them with a platform through which they can share their work. These include the Peer Advising Program, which matches up experienced upperclassmen with freshmen who are interested in pursuing similar research, the Visitas Research Symposium, which provides visiting prefrosh with a glimpse of the research done by Harvard undergraduates, and the Life Sciences Undergraduate Research Symposium (jointly sponsored by the Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships), which introduces undergraduates to numerous labs where they can get started with life sciences research.
Conferences
It is HURA’s annual tradition to organize the three-day National Collegiate Research Conference, the largest undergraduate-run conference that brings undergraduate researchers from across the nation and across numerous disciplines to Harvard every January. The conference provides young researchers with the chance to present their research and connect with large research companies and institutions, research leaders, entrepreneurs, and each other. In the past, NCRC has featured such esteemed speakers as Jeffrey Sachs, Stephen Wolfram, Robert Gallo, Melissa Franklin, Douglas Melton, Walter Lewin, Steven Pinker, and more. The conference hosts a number of workshops and group activities that prompt participants to think about their future and the future of research.