My name is Emily and I am reaching out on behalf of the Undergraduate Research Opportunities (URO) team. URO is a student-led, AMS-constituted UBC club. We run the Research EXperience (REX) program where undergraduate students (mentees) are paired with post-doctoral and graduate students (mentors) to design a theoretical research project. At the end of the program, the undergraduate students present their finished projects at MURC, one of the largest undergraduate research conferences in BC. This initiative provides undergraduates early exposure to the valuable world of research without the monetary and logistical constraints associated with the traditional laboratory experience. The 2020-2021 REX program saw the participation of over 130 mentors and 420 undergraduate applicants.
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We are currently looking for mentors for the 2021-2022 REX program. We kindly ask you to forward this email to the graduate students and postdoctoral fellows on your team, and encourage them to take part in this great opportunity. We sincerely appreciate your help in supporting undergraduate research at the University of British Columbia.
What is REX?
REX is a six month long program designed to help undergraduate students build essential research skills through a prospective research project (no results, lab time, or lab resources required). The skills acquired by the prospective students include:
- Answering research questions
- Understanding how to perform literature reviews
- Synthesizing an experimental design
- Creating & printing a research poster
- Learning how to present a research poster
We are envisioning the 2021-2022 cycle of the REX program to be predominantly online, most certainly for the first semester of the year. This means that meetings will be held preferably online between mentors and mentees. Mentors and mentees will still be free to choose their own meeting times and their own method of contacting each other, however, we encourage REX groups who choose to hold in-person meetings to continue to follow recommendations from BC Health authorities.
We are currently looking for graduate students and post-doctoral fellows who are interested in committing a minimum of 4 hours each month to act as a mentor. It is a great opportunity for graduate students to gain mentorship, leadership, and management skills. Furthermore, the REX program assists mentors on the lookout for promising students to take into their lab through direct evaluation for 6 months (October to March).
If this opportunity interests you and has sparked your interest in becoming a mentor, please fill out a registration form here. (This is NOT the final registration. The final registration and bio submission opens on August 2nd, 2021 and will confirm your registration in the program for this year.)
Further information:
If you have any questions, comments or other inquiries please do not hesitate to contact us at rex.uro.ubc@gmail.com. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Emily Li
Research EXperience Committee Member
Undergraduate Research Opportunities
University of British Columbia
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