GET FUNDED and FOCUSED
Ready to experience or commit to doing research? We offer a variety of financial support options so you can dedicate time and focus to hands-on, faculty-mentored and real-world research.
Frost Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP)
The Frost Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) provides funded summer research opportunities, allowing students to work full-time with faculty mentors on immersive, hands-on projects across a variety of disciplines.
Frost Research Scholarships
Frost Research Scholarships support students who are actively engaged in faculty-mentored work during the academic year, providing funding to continue and deepen their research experience.
Frost SURP and Frost Research Scholarships are made possible by the Frost Fund.
How do I get involved with research?
Joining a professor’s research group is a great first step. Connect with a faculty member or your department and ask about the various opportunities in your field of study.
What about other research funding?
If you’re ready to seek funding, faculty and your department can help guide you with this as well. Faculty grants and donor contributions provide direct support for paid student research and funded research scholarships. Below are examples of ongoing donor-supported student research in the Bailey College.
BEACoN is a university-wide program centered on underrepresented students, but open to all undergraduates. BEACoN seeks to make research accessible, providing students with funded research opportunities working with faculty mentors. Donors to the Bailey College Undergraduate Research Fund augment the number of students BEACoN is able to support and provide opportunities for Bailey BEACoN Research Scholars to continue research full time in the summer through Frost SURP.
This program provides students with the mentorship and hands-on experience to become leaders in the field of conservation. In addition to an $8,000 scholarship, Halter Ranch Conservation Scholars benefit from summer internship placements with a conservation partner, which comes with a summer research stipend. An open call for applications takes place annually, and is advertised through the Bailey College social media accounts.
Each summer a group of students engage in full-time innovation-focused research, working alongside faculty mentors and receiving summer research stipends from the Bailey College Innovation Initiative, which is supported by alumni, parents and other supporters.
Sarepta Therapeutics provides two scholarships per year to students conducting research through Cal Poly’s Center for Applications in Biotechnology (CAB). Sarepta Scholars develop applied laboratory skills in translational biology, nonclinical research sciences, and research operations.
The Santa Rosa Creek Foundation provides grants for students and faculty doing research through the Center for Coastal Marine Sciences. Training includes field data collection for long term data sets, experimental manipulation in labs and the field, the creation and operation of sensing/measurement technologies, data analysis via advanced statistical and computational techniques, and science communication skills.
Incoming graduate students are automatically considered for a number of donor-funded scholarships. Several are awarded to students joining specific research fields or labs, including the Dr. Kathleen A. Curtis Elephant Seal Research Graduate Fellowship, the Correcaminos Scholarship (ornithology research), the Manzanita Scholarship (botanical research), the Physical Ecology of Reptiles Lab Scholarship, and the Aryan I. Roest Memorial Scholarship (environmental and conservation biology).