Mentor Awards

Application Schedule

 

Faculty, research staff, and graduate students from all ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ-affiliated campuses are invited to apply for URSA Mentor Awards. This award is an opportunity for mentors to receive funding to engage undergraduate students on their current research and creative projects. Awarded proposals will clearly describe a project with a distinguished mentoring plan for undergraduate students involved.

This year, URSA will offer a Spring 2025 and a Summer 2025 award.

  • Applicants are required to identify at least one eligible undergraduate student upon awarding. 
  • Funds may be used towards an undergraduate student fellowship, undergraduate student tuition (up to 4 credits for a course related to the project), travel to a fieldwork location, supplies, or services.
  • Mentors may only receive one mentor award per academic year (Fall through Summer). Mentors may only receive mentor award funding 2 out of every 3 years. Contact the URSA Office if you have eligibility questions. 
Mentor and student painting in the snow
Spring 2025 Award

  • Funding maximum: $3,000
  • Accepting applications September 30 - November 3, 2024.
  • Reflection due and funds must be spent by April 27, 2025.

Mentor with two students holding rocks in the lab
Summer 2025 Award

  • Funding maximum: $6,000
  • Funds will be assigned to FY25 and FY26.
  • Reflections due and funds must be spent by August 20, 2025.

CEM students work together on a project
Students, Jenni Klebesadel, Apryle Collison, and Heather McKenzie (L-R), workshop a solution for the incubation box. Photo by JR Ancheta.

Ben Barst, 2022 Mentor Awardee
Institute of Northern Engineering/ Water and Environmental Research Center

Dr. Barst worked with three undergraduate students to develop a field-deployable Pacific salmon embryo monitoring system, that records water temperature and takes and stores pictures of developing Pacific salmon embryos over the course of many months. The incubation box is currently being tested in the lab before being tested in the field under much harsher environmental conditions. The group is now working together to publish the description of this device so that other researchers may use it to help monitor early life stage development of Pacific salmon in a variety of contexts. 

"I  would recommend mentoring undergraduates. I think undergraduates have a lot to offer towards research at ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ. They are excited to transition from coursework and foundational knowledge to doing research. Tapping into that excitement is a great way to move a project forward, all while creating a positive experience for an early career researcher."

 

Mentor Courtney Skaggs meets with her undergraduate student, Ayden Harris, at the 2023 RCA Day.
Mentor Courtney Skaggs meets with her undergraduate student, Ayden Harris, at the 2023 RCA Day. Photo by Eric Marshall.

Courtney Skaggs, 2022 Mentor Awardee
Department of English

Under this proposal, Courtney established a mentorship program between undergraduate and graduate students within the Department of English. Through participation in this new mentorship program, undergraduates interested in pursuing a career in creative writing or literary publishing were invited to shadow the Editor-in-Chief of Permafrost, received guidance on graduate school applications and job searches, and attended the annual Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference. 

Dr. Sikes' undergraduates presenting a poster at RCA Day.
Students, Razan Yousif, Luke Lawson, and Lucy White (L-R), present a poster at the 2023 RCA Day. Photo by Eric Marshall.

 

Derek Sikes, 2022 Mentor Awardee
University of ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ Museum of the North

ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ is a high priority region for bioinventory because of its rapidly changing climate and unique biogeographic past. During the most recent glacial maximum much of ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ remained an ice-free glacial refugium. This likely explains the hundreds of endemic arthropod species in ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ (species known only from ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ). Under this proposal, 3 students prepared a 96-well plate to ship tissues to the Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding. Specimens were prepared and archived following UA Museum Insect Collection protocols and the resulting DNA sequences were analyzed to test the prediction that St. Paul will have a high proportion of unique DNA barcodes.

"The URSA mentor award experience was very helpful in connecting me to some bright undergrads to help accomplish some exciting research... I would definitely recommend URSA mentor awards to my peers for this reason. The students all learned new skills and I expect they are better equipped for their future career paths."

Xochitl looks through the camera of the CT scanner in Boulder, CO while a fossil is scanning.

Xochitl looks through the camera of the CT scanner in Boulder, CO while a fossil is scanning. Photo courtesy of Lauren Wilson. 

Lauren Wilson, 2023 Mentor Awardee
University of ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ Museum of the North

The Prince Creek Formation (PCF) on the North Slope of ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ is the most important site for Mesozoic Arctic vertebrate fossils worldwide, as it contains well-preserved remains from a wide variety of dinosaurs, birds, fishes, and mammals. Among these, the mammals are poorly studied and so far are only known from teeth. Based on the dental record, it was determined there are four species of mammals in the PCF. However, from looking at toothless jaws and other skeletal material, Xochitl found that there were at least nine mammals in the PCF. Their project, mentored by Wilson, was to collect high-resolution computed tomography (CT) data, which is the gold standard for paleontological research on fossil anatomy, and which they used to make publication quality figures to record the diversity of the mammals in the PCF. 

" I had a lot of hesitation in feeling like, as a graduate student, I wasn’t equipped to be a mentor. I finally started to realize that your mentee doesn’t expect you to know everything. In fact, being able to work through things when you don’t know the answer is a great skill to demonstrate, and can make science seem a little less daunting. As a graduate student, it can feel very daunting to be in an advising position, but I think this is the best possible time to start practicing these skills. It has also helped my own scientific writing skills immensely and improved my ability to teach technical skills such as CT data processing. It was also just a great experience all around, as Xochitl and I are good friends, so it was a lot of fun to get to work on a project together over my last year at ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ! "

Bitzer and Dixon in the snow
Sasha Bitzer (L) and Reily Dixon (R) painting in the snow. Photo courtesy of Sasha Bitzer.

Sasha Bitzer, 2023 Mentor Awardee
Department of Art

Project Title: Cognitive Cryogenics: Visual Metaphors for Human-Environment Relationships 

This project was designed to mentor a student through the process of using gathered information to develop a cohesive body of artwork based that conceptually communicates through metaphor rather than direct illustration. This included development of a visual language, and producing and presenting fine art works for a cohesive exhibition. The project focused on engaging with ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ glaciers and bringing them into a visual dialog through a lens of learning and appreciation for the lessons that can be learned from them.

"Investing time and effort into including students in projects you are passionate about may turn out to be the most rewarding part of your project. The URSA mentor award allows ideas to be cultivated with students in a way that promotes learning and deeper exploration for both the mentor and the student. I believe it is valuable for the student to see how the mentor approaches solving real-time problems and to observe that mentors also face struggles when working toward goals. I see that this longer, focused period of study on a single project can show students that they are capable of more than they know."