On-Campus Research Opportunities

There are many opportunities available to you at Georgetown University through various departments, programs, and initiatives. The list below includes many of these research opportunities but is not exhaustive. For more information about any of the below opportunities, please contact the relevant administrator.

Department of Performing Arts Summer Creative Research Awards

Georgetown’s Department of Performing Arts (DPA) offers grants to current undergraduate students to support research, scholarship, and professional development. The DPA Summer Creative Research Award covers costs for student-led interdisciplinary research, fieldwork, approved internships, workshops, conferences, festivals, and other projects related to thesis or capstone projects. The DPA Summer Creative Research Award helps students with basic living expenses, transportation, accommodation, travel, and other reasonable costs associated with their projects, making these experiences accessible to all students regardless of their financial situation. While preference is given to American Musical Culture and Theater and Performance Studies majors, the awards are open to all Georgetown undergraduate students. Visit this link to learn more about the DPA Summer Creative Research Awards.

Disability Studies Learning in Practice Fellowships

The Disability Studies Learning in Practice Fellowships are designed to enable students to pursue immersive projects, including research, but also including community-based work, otherwise unpaid internships, and travel that centers and benefits the disability community. In academic year 2022-2023, Disability Studies will award $5,000 to each of the top three most compelling and sustainable projects addressing any topic concerning mental health and justice.

Please submit your application and/or any questions to Professor Libbie Rifkin at lsr@georgetown.edu (new window) (new window). The completed application must be submitted by Monday, November 14. Finalist interviews will be held prior to the Thanksgiving holiday. The three awardees will be notified by December 15.

Royden B. Davis Fellowship

The Royden B. Davis Fellowship, named after Fr. Davis, Dean of Georgetown College from 1966 to 1989, offers summer fellowships which provide between $1,500 and $3,000 in summer support, depending upon the length of the proposed research/experience and the project budget (including the existence of other sources of funding). 

You may find the application information here.

Mortara Undergraduate Research Fellows

The School of Foreign Service and the Mortara Center for International Studies jointly invite engaged and motivated freshmen to take part in the university’s newest research initiative. A select group of the finest students in the School of Foreign Service will have the opportunity to partner with professors as research-assistants and co-authors on complex research projects throughout their undergraduate career. Please contact mortaracenter@georgetown.edu with any questions.

Kalmanovitz Initiative Undergraduate Fellows Program

The Kalmanovitz Initiative Undergraduate Fellows Program aims to educate and empower students through institutional support of academic exploration on issues of labor and the working poor as well as through mentorship by Georgetown alumni and others in the DC community engaged in social justice work. Please contact Juan Bélman Guerrero, Program Manager, with any questions.

Figge Fellows

The John & Pat Figge Woodstock Undergraduate Student Research Fellowship gives several Georgetown undergraduates an opportunity to do “theological reflection on the human problems of today.” Figge Fellows are selected through a competitive process, with a goal of bringing together students from a variety of majors and religious traditions who display a high level of academic aptitude and a strong interest in how theological reflection can be applied to current issues. Please contact Kim Daniels with any questions.

You may find the application here.

The Education and Social Justice Project: International Summer Research Fellowships

The Education and Social Justice Project provides select students with summer research fellowships to travel abroad for in-depth examinations of innovative initiatives, with a focus on the work of Jesuit secondary and post-secondary institutions. Under faculty supervision, the students gather information through interviews, analyze best practices, and share their reports and conclusions with a wider global audience. Please contact csjresearch@georgetown.edu with any questions.

CyberCorps Scholarship for Service Program

Through the CyberCorps™ Scholarship for Service Program, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has partnered with Georgetown University provide scholarships to students to earn degrees critical for cybersecurity in exchange for service in the form of employment in a governmental cybersecurity position. This national program is designed to educate the individuals who will design and protect the nation’s critical information infrastructure, define the policies, and write the laws that govern and protect this infrastructure, and educate the nation’s future generations of cybersecurity professionals. Please contact cyberfellows@georgetown.edu with any questions.

Tocqueville Forum: “On the Roots of American Democracy”

The Tocqueville Student Fellows Program enables Georgetown undergraduate students that are strongly interested in the Tocqueville Forum more deeply to explore the themes and questions at the heart of the American democracy. Membership is selective, and admission reflects an accomplishment. Student Fellows will be given many opportunities to learn about America’s founding principles and their roots in the Western tradition. Please contact tocquevilleforum@georgetown.edu with any questions.

The Center for Social Justice: The David F. Andretta Summer Research Fellowship

The Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service invites applications from current Georgetown University juniors for a summer research fellowship funded by the David F. Andretta, MD Explorer Fund. The fellowship is awarded annually to a Georgetown University junior who seeks to spend the summer before senior year exploring social justice issue through an academic research project. Proposals for research projects outside of the United States are highly encouraged, although applications of domestic context will be considered. Please contact csjresearch@georgetown.edu with any questions.

Beeck Center’s GU Impacts Fellowship Program

GU Impacts Fellows participate in an eight-month fellowship centered on a 10-12 week summer project with cutting-edge organizations and social enterprises in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. Please contact beeckcenter@georgetown.edu with any questions.

French Department’s John Carroll Summer Internship Program in Saint-Omer, France

The John Carroll Summer Internship Program supports students interning at local museums, government offices, tourist destinations, national parks, and multinational corporations based in Saint-Omer while living with local families. Please contact Professor Farima Mostowfi with any questions

gui2de Student Experiences

gui2de offers internships for both undergraduate and graduate students with a focus on economics and development. Students are placed in locations where gui2de has current research projects, such as East Africa and India. Please contact gui2de@georgetown.edu with any questions.

Global Social Internship Program

The Global Social Internship Program (GSIP) enables business students to develop transformative leadership skills related to non-profit and socially-focused enterprises while engaging in experiential learning activities for a period of 4-5 weeks with partner organizations abroad. Please contact Senior Assistant Dean Monija Amani with any questions.

Global Business Experience: Undergraduate Program

The Global Business Experience (GBE) is a globally-oriented course and international consulting project offered as an elective to undergraduates in the MSB and to select students in the SFS. GBE consists of an intensive course and international consulting project, for which student teams travel abroad to consult with fortune 500 or industry-specific companies. Please contact Dr. Ricardo Ernst, Global Logistics Research Program Co-Director, with any questions.

Center for Social Justice Alternative Breaks Program

The Alternative Breaks Program (ABP) offers student-led, social justice-oriented trips over spring break throughout the U.S. and abroad. Every program facilitates student interaction and emphasizes the need for students to learn firsthand about social justice issues. Please contact altbreaks@georgetown.edu with any questions.

100 Projects for Peace

100 Projects for Peace is an initiative for undergraduate students at Georgetown to design their own grassroots peace projects anywhere in the world. The CSJ awards one student or a team of two students $10,000 to implement their peace project. Please contact Kyra Hanlon, Assistant Director, Immersion Programs, with any questions.

Georgetown Environment Initiative Impact Program

The Impact Program is designed to provide funding to seed new directions and collaborations for environmental research, seminar series, educational programs, and outreach programs that show significant potential. Please contact geievents@georgetown.edu with any questions.

Georgetown Social Innovation and Public Service Fund

The Social Innovation and Public Service (SIPS) Fund provides funding and support for projects that serve the public good domestically and internationally. SIPS funds undergraduates and alumni. Please contact sipsfund@georgetown.edu with any questions.

BSFS Improving the Human Conditions Grant

Improving the Human Condition Grant offers funding to BSFS students engaged in meaningful summer projects that improve the quality of life for others. These projects may be conducted through structured internships, research assistantships, or independent work. Please contact Jamie Welling, Global Experience Program Director, with any questions.

Security Studies Program Summer Research Grant

The Summer Research Grant is offered to Security Studies Program students who seek funding for domestic or international summer research, language immersion, and domestic or international internships. Please contact securitystudies@georgetown.edu with any questions.

NHS Global Health Practical Experience Abroad

The Department of Global Health sends the majority of their undergraduate students to conduct research abroad. Undergraduates spend their fall semester abroad during their senior year in countries such as Ghana, Tanzania, Mexico, Brazil, India, and Australia. Please contact Assistant Dean Bryan Floyd with any questions.

Biology Department Scholarships, Grants, and Fellowships

The Biology Department offers the Zukowski Fellowship and the Kolleng Fellowship are open to Biology majors who are currently in their sophomore, junior and senior years and will provide a research award of $2,500 and up to a $1,000 living allowance. Please contact Dr. Shweta Bansal with any questions.

BSFS Circumnavigator Grant

The Circumnavigators Club Foundation and the SFS sponsor a student for a 90-day summer research trip. One member of the SFS junior class is awarded a $9,000 Raymond Dinsmore Fellowship to undertake an around-the-world research project to explore an international problem or issue to generally contribute to our understanding of world conditions. Please contact your respective dean with any questions.

Center for Latin American Studies: International Internship/Travel Research Grants

The Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) funds research and international internships in Latin America. The program strives to complement students’ academic experiences during the school year by financially supporting students’ research and professional development. Please contact CLAS@georgetown.edu with any questions.

Provost Undergraduate Research Presentation Awards (PURPAs)

PURPAs provides funds for undergraduates who want to extend their undergraduate research efforts beyond the Georgetown campus in either traditional or innovative ways, in the form of conference presentations, publications, or performances. Please contact provost@georgetown.edu with any questions.

Provost Undergraduate Research Council (PURC)

PURC is a faculty-undergraduate student council formed to guide and promote undergraduate research. The Council (1) helps coordinate and promote undergraduate research opportunities; (2) assists students and their mentors in conducting research on and off campus and in compliance with Georgetown and federal policies and procedures (e.g., GUACUC, IRB, minority policy); (3) develops priority areas for supporting undergraduate research; and, (4) showcases undergraduate research at scheduled conferences, symposia, workshops, etc. (5) helps to facilitate funding for undergraduate research and related activities. Please contact provost@georgetown.edu with any questions.

Political Science Predoctoral Summer Institute

This fully funded, week-long program from Georgetown University’s Government Department is for juniors and seniors from historically underrepresented communities majoring in political science and planning to apply to graduate school.

The program is intended to help students develop their research skills and begin working on their applications with the help of faculty and graduate student mentors.

More application details to be released early spring semester. Please contact csjresearch@georgetown.edu with any questions.

Diversity in Cancer Research – Summer 2022 Undergraduate Internship Program

This 10-week, full time program is open to rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors with an interest in STEM, Cancer, and/or Biomedical Research. Applicants from backgrounds underrepresented in biomedical research are strongly encouraged to apply.

The program begins June 6, 2022 and offers a $5000 stipend for students during the summer. The internship program also includes participation in in-person and virtual workshops, seminars, scientific meetings, mentoring, and career development activities during the 2022-2023 academic year under a carefully matched Mentor and Peer Mentor.

  • Application Deadline is March 1, 2022.

U.S.-China Student-to-Student Dialogue

  • The U.S.-China Student-to-Student Dialogue is an exchange program designed to promote dialogue on critical issues in the U.S.-China relationship between students at Georgetown University and various Chinese universities. From spring 2021 through spring 2023 participants met virtually as part of semester-long cohorts. The expanded 2023-2024 program involves both virtual dialogues and in-person meetings. Learn more about the U.S.-China Student-to-Student Dialogue here (new window).