Faculty members in the College of Natural Sciences (CNS) are critical to the success of the Freshman Research Initiative (FRI). Over the history of the program, dozens of faculty scientists and mathematicians have seen the benefits of developing Research Streams to engage undergraduate researchers, with help and guidance from PhD-level Research Educators, graduate students and undergraduate peer mentors.
These experiences have allowed faculty to:
- Draw down more grant funding
- Progress into new areas of their research
- Publish journal articles
- Recruit top undergraduates to serve in their labs
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"One of the reasons I absolutely love this concept is that it’s expanded my research group by 30 young undergraduates, who, once they’re educated, are able to do things that are very analogous to what my own Ph.D. students are doing." Eric Anslyn, Welch Regents Chair in Chemistry and Distinguished Teaching Professor, Supra Sensors and Practical Sensors Streams |
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“I have already started to plan additional projects that will provide benefit to my own research and have incorporated these into grant proposals indicating where the FRI students will contribute. These students are very, very good. I think once faculty realize this asset is out there, they will also start looking for trained students to take into their laboratories." Karen Browning, Professor of Molecular Biosciences, Biobricks Stream |
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"There’s a very close relationship between what the students are doing and what I’m doing. The students are doing the straightforward but critical experiments that predict what might be happening at the gene level, and then we are able to come in and test that at the gene level. It’s absolutely novel, and absolutely essential, yet also very basic" Stan Roux, Professor of Molecular Biosciences and Distinguished Teaching Professor, Discovering Signals Stream
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Centers, Institutes and Departments
FRI is a cross-campus collaboration, involving a number of departments, centers, institutes and faculty, like those listed below.
- Astronomy Department
- Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
- Center for Quantum Research
- Center for Infectious Disease
- Center For Systems & Synthetic Biology
- Chemistry Department
- Computer Science Department
- Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology
- Integrative Biology Department
- Jackson School of Geosciences
- Mathematics Department
- Molecular Biosciences Department
- Neuroscience Department
- Physics Department
- Texas Materials Institute & The Center for Nano and Molecular Science and Technology
