Dear PROPEL undergraduates,
The PROPEL program connects undergraduate students with research and teaching opportunities across UMass Amherst, helping to make experiential learning more accessible to students from all backgrounds. As the program continues to grow, we are also working to strengthen the community of students who are participating in these opportunities.
Last year, with support from the Office of Faculty Development Mutual Mentoring program and HHMI, PROPEL reached out to engage departments in CNS and ENG. The result was mentors from 12 departments posting 96 projects. There were 1926 unique student logins from 55 majors in 10 colleges with mentors accepting 507 students across 32 majors.
In our first year there were 96 projects from 12 Departments. Over 400 students from 27+ Majors were accepted into projects. PROPEL will be raising money during this year’s hashtag #UMassGives campaign on April 29 and 30. We hope to use this money towards creating new research projects that students can participate in and funding mentor-mentee lunches next year! Our “Power Hour” is from 12 - 1 p.m. on April 29! If we receive the greatest number of gifts during that hour, we will win an additional $2000, or $500 for second place.
PROPEL Research Fellow Sophia Deligiannidis’ work on improving accessibility for undergraduate researchers has selected for the spotlight during the UMass Digital Equity and Inclusion Week (DEIW) 2025.
Graduate student and postdoc PROPEL mentors you should add a statement about your research project to your resume. Here is an example
Mentor for Undergraduate PROPEL Project, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Spring 2025
Come get professional help in your application to PROPEL projects!
Where: Morrill II 337
When: Wednesday, Nov 20th from 12-1 pm
Join us for a panel with UMass principal investigators (PIs) as they share what they look for in undergraduate applicants! This is OPEN TO ALL MAJORS
November 18th, 2024
ILC S140 | 5:30 PM
The Muser Drupal development team has worked hard this summer on several new features that impact both mentors and students.
When students favorite a project during the application period of the round, five more active projects will be suggested in a pop-up at the bottom of the screen. These recommendations are based on the academic topic(s) of the original favorited project, and they will refresh every time the student favorites a new project.
Mentor Dr. Hailong Yang feels research is innate in humans. We are driven by curiosity to understand how and why things work from different perspectives regardless of background and disciplines. Dr. Yang wants to nurture this quality into the next generation of researchers at UMass and the PROPEL program allowed him to interact and work with students at a deeper level. Dr.