Starting with the summer of 2015 the Deans’ Undergraduate Research Fund (DURF) is now available to students at NYU Shanghai! What is DURF exactly? DURF is the Dean’s Undergraduate Research Fund, a program that awards funding to NYU Shanghai undergraduates who will be conducting eight FULL-TIME weeks of summer research in any field of study. With this there is a lot of freedom in what a student can do as DURF recognizes a broad definition of research: “research, scholarly, or artistic activities that lead to the production of new knowledge; to increased problem solving capabilities, including design analysis; to original, critical or historical theory and interpretation; or to the production of art or artistic performance.” I spoke with John Robertson, the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, about the benefits of this opportunity for NYU Shanghai students. He says, “students benefit from it by its generating resources they can draw on to be able to have research opportunities. It’s mainly intended to allow students to stay in Shanghai over the summer, working with faculty, taking care of their housing needs, costs and food costs, so they don’t need a summer job and can devote full-time to research during that period.” Our fund is comparable to that of NYU in New York. It does the exact same thing with the same intentions, although it may give a little bit more money just because housing is more expensive in New York. The fund is meant to be interdisciplinary, so the committee reading and evaluating the applications is made up of different disciplines. There is a difference in the application depending on what field you are applying for to encourage a broad discipline of research. Humanities students are expected to take full advantage of the opportunity as well. To be eligible, you simply must be:

An NYU Shanghai undergraduate student - including freshmen - in a degree-granting program;

Going to be enrolled during the fall semester after your fellowship;

In good academic standing (not on probation, leave of absence or suspension)

More information on DURF, the application, and the program requirements can be found in an email sent to students on March 19th by NYU Shanghai Advising with the subject line Dean’s Undergraduate Research Fund. If you don’t remember seeing this go back and check your email and note that the first half of the email may be a duplicate of the actual message which included the coding text so it looks like a jumble of symbols and letters, but keep scrolling down and eventually you will get to the readable content. Lastly, John Robertson wants students to know they should be creative about their research. Do not think your research doesn’t qualify for this. If you have a question you would like to explore find a faculty member who can mentor you in it and apply. The application is currently active, and the deadline for summer research is April 20, 2015. This article was written by Maya Williams. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Omer Cohen