Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities Grants application will open in spring 2025!
Committee members representing at least four academic colleges review grants, mentor students to improve grant proposals, and award funds.
Their mission is to support the UReCA grants program coordinated by the Cohen Honors College and seeks to ensure that every undergraduate student has a Research or Creative Activity experience by:
Students who meet the following requirements are eligible to apply:
Note: Preference is given to students whose projects are not currently receiving funding from another source (e.g., faculty mentor grants).
Typically, grants can be used for travel in direct support of the research project (e.g., books, field sites, museums, historic sites), as well as most materials and equipment. When applicable, all purchases (e.g., leftover materials and equipment) must remain at WSU after the project is completed as property of the mentor鈥檚 department. Grants may be used for participant incentives with proof of appropriate Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval. Grants MAY NOT be used for stipends.
If awarded, the student-faculty team agrees to the following:
It is expected that students will work with their faculty advisor to create complete, quality proposals.
Other resources include:
Faculty Letters of Support are an important part of the application. Applications without a coresponding letter can not be reviewed. It is the responsibillity of the student to ensure that faculty mentors are aware of deadlines.
Faculty Mentors may submit their letter of support .
The Cohen Honors College coordinates with the Office of Research and Technology Transfer to generate a new organization and fund number for the grant, assigned to the principal investigator. These numbers will be sent to the department contact for use on purchases or reimbursements. You can find the budget for these accounts in Reporting Services by clicking on Grant-Research Reporting, then the option that is live to date ("LTD") then choosing the appropriate options from the drop down menus.
Reimbursements are handled through each individual department. Travel processes are different depending on if the grant winner is a student employee or not. Non-student employees will be processed using an ICD and student employees will be processed using TEM. When a student wins a grant, we will send further instructions about the reimbursement process to each department.
If the student is participating in a research project that has previously received IRB/IACUC approval, but the student was not listed as a co-investigator, the principal investigator will need to submit an IRB addendum or email proposals@wichita.edu to get the correct forms for IACUC.
If you have questions, please contact undergraduateresearch@wichita.edu.
For conference travel for presentations, acceptance confirmation is required before dispersal of funds but not necessary prior to application. If a group of students will be making multiple presentations at one conference, submit one travel grant for the entire group.
If awarded this grant for travel, you will have to fill out and submit the University-Sanctioned Student Travel Registration Form.
The URCA Committee reveiws grant applications four times a year. Applicants will generally be notified the following week of committee's decision, depending on number of applications and time of year.
Application Deadlines:
Mouhamad Houssein Ballout, Psychology Facial Emotion Recognition in Adult Violent Offenders
Faculty Mentor: C. Brendan Clark, Psychology
Sierra Bauman, Honors Baccalaureate Philosophy in Context: Universal and Individualistic
Faculty Mentor: Noell Birondo, Philosophy
Katie Carley, Communication Sciences and Disorders Patterns and Levels of Intensity in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Faculty Mentor: Doug Parham, Communication Sciences and Disorders
Sandra Carlo, Honors Baccalaureate An Exploration of Sexuality in Popular Media Through Movement
Faculty Mentor: Cheyla Clawson, Dance
Lucy Cook, Communication Sciences and Disorders Effectiveness of anti-slip patch to assess lingual performance with the IOPI
Faculty Mentor: Heidi Bell, Human Performance Studies
Nelson Ghee, Areospace Engineering The Application of Tungsten Sulphide for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells
Faculty Mentor: Wei Wei, Mechanical Engineering
Wyel Halimeh, Chemistry Surfactant-Based Colloidal Systems to Promote Photo Induced Reduction of Silver Nanoparticles
Faculty Mentor: Doug English, Chemistry
Emily Johnson, Mechanical Engineering Design, Fabrication, and Characterization of a Jellyfish Robot for Underwater Applications
Faculty Mentor: Sindhu Preetham Burugupally, Mechanical Engineering
Shuai Liang, Finance Understanding the current context of career decision-making difficulties for Asian
international students
Faculty Mentor: Jiaqi Li, Counseling, Educational Leadership, Educational and School
Psychology (CLES)
Casey Palmer, Biology Examining LDH function and stability in extremophiles hypsibius dujardini through
protein engineering
Faculty Mentor: Moriah Beck, Chemistry
Sean Sadat, Mechanical Engineering USAVE: Universal Smart Air Vent for Residential and Commercial Applications
Faculty Mentor: Sindhu Preetham Burugupally, Mechanical Engineering