Current CURE Offerings
Talk to your advisor today about enrolling in one of these Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) for Fall 2025!
*Some courses may require you to complete an application or email the instructor to enroll. See information for each course below.
Interested in Vertically Integrated Projects? Visit their webpage to apply: uavip.arizona.edu/
Check this page regularly - we update it as classes are added or changed. A complete list of CUREs developed at the University of Arizona can be found here.
Questions about CUREs? Email UndergradResearch@arizona.edu!
Instructor: Dr. Bryan Carter (bryancarter@arizona.edu)
Schedule: Varies
Credits: 1-3
Description: Students will join in a theoretical and hands-on practical introduction to the Digital Humanities and advanced technologies used in the field (augmented reality, virtual reality, volumetric, 360 imaging, etc.). This knowledge will be applied in a real-world project with a local cultural center as students collaborate to explore how to undertake critical, embedded Digital Humanities partnerships in community settings with vulnerable populations.
Prerequisites: None
Notes: Students interested in enrolling should email Dr. Bryan Carter at bryancarter@arizona.edu.
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Instructor: Dr. Tara Archuleta (tlarchul@arizona.edu)
Schedule: Wednesdays 4:00pm-4:50pm
Credits: 1
Description: To introduce sophomore biochemistry students to experimental design and data interpretation. Exercises include group discussions on experimental controls, conclusions, and alternate explanations for published experiments. Students will apply what they learn to generate resources in the field of biochemical research.
Prerequisites: Biochemistry majors only, or consent of instructor.
Instructors: Dr. Bryan Black (bryanblack@arizona.edu) and Dr. Kiyomi Morino (kmorino@ltrr.arizona.edu)
Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays 11:00am-12:15pm
Credits: 3 credits
Description: Marine applications of tree-ring science: Many marine fish and clams live decades or even centuries and form annual rings, just like trees. Join us as we develop a multi-century history of North Pacific climate from the growth rings of the Pacific geoduck, a clam that can live to be more than 150 years in age. Starting with live-collected shells and then expanding to dead shells excavated by divers from the ocean floor, we will apply tree-ring techniques to assemble a continuous 1,000-year clam-ring growth chronology that reflects sea water temperature. Learn about dendrochronology, marine science, and climate science as we discover the history of North Pacific climate and how it has varied over the past millennium in this hands-on research class. No prior experience is required.
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Laura Horley (lhorley@arizona.edu)
Schedule: Mondays and Wednesdays 12:30pm-1:45pm, in-person
Credits: 3
Description: This is a dynamic service-learning course where students investigate notions of community and civic engagement through the lens of a social scientist, community members, and non-profit leaders. Students are asked to engage in service-learning pedagogy with real-world practice in this hands-on experiential learning class. Students will spend time understanding systematic social issues and structured inequalities with a non-profit community partner. Students will work on an interdisciplinary Honors Civic Engagement Team (HCET) to address and respond to social issues impacting marginalized communities. Students should expect to spend about 45 hours on community-based projects that the host organization often would be unable to complete with their own resources. Students will spend time unveiling their personal values and identities to better understand solutions to social issues plaguing society including racism, sexism, classism, and other forms of bias through reflections, readings, discussions and academic inquiry. Students will develop an understanding of their long-term social responsibility in responding to community-based social issues through the lenses of a social scientist, a non-profit leader, and a community member.
Prerequisites: Must be an Honors student
Instructor: Dr. Martha Whitaker (marthaw@arizona.edu)
Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:30am-10:45am
Credits: 3 credits
Description: This course is an introduction to main hydrologic processes, including global circulation, precipitation, evaporation and transpiration, runoff, soil moisture, infiltration, groundwater, water quality, and water resources management. Laboratory and field techniques complement lecture topics. Students will conduct at least one course-based-undergraduate research experience (CURE) and prepare a presentation for stakeholders.
Students in this course will work to answer the question: “Do monsoon storms start later in the day than they did decades ago?” This question has been raised by numerous long-time Tucson citizens, who insist that monsoon storms start in the late evening (after sunset) rather than 3-5pm. While this started as a pedestrian question, it also has meteorological and practical implications if it is in fact true. The in-person class is a hands-on Collaborative Learning course, and there is a practical, applied lab with several field trips, many of which involve interaction with hydrology & atmospheric science professionals. Some examples of field trips for the lab include: Stream gaging with the US Geological Survey; A tour of the National Weather Survey office and a weather balloon launch; A tour of Biosphere2's Landscape Evolution Observatory (LEO) Project; and more! This is an excellent course to gain a broad, applied understanding of virtually every subdiscipline in hydrology!
Prerequisites: Calculus I (MATH 113 or MATH 122A&B)
Instructor: Dr. Amy Fountain (avf@arizona.edu)
Schedule: Asynchronous online
Credits: 1-3
Description: Students will join a community-based language technology development project, the Coeur d’Alene Online Language Resource Center (COLRC), as an example of a community lead language technology development project that focuses on the needs of a low-resource, minoritized language community. Depending on their skills and interests, participating students will enroll for 1 to 3 credits, at a course level (299, 399, 499) appropriate to their experience, and be assigned to assist in the development and deployment process. The project supports students who wish to develop skills in linguistic analysis and language activism, along with at least one of the following technical skills: coding for frontend, backend, rest interfaces, and scripting (javascript, python); database development (postgres, graphQL); and/or natural language processing (ingest, tokenization, annotation tasks using lum.ai/odinson libraries). Interested students should have at least some familiarity with and enjoyment of coding, but need not have significant experience or expertise in these areas. Students who are members of minoritized or low resource language communities will bring particularly valuable experience and expertise to this work, but any undergraduate student is welcome to participate
Prerequisites: None
Notes: Students interested in enrolling should email Dr. Amy Fountain at avf@arizona.edu.
Instructors: Dr. Jennie Gubner (jgubner@arizona.edu)
Schedule: Tuesdays 9:30am-11:50am
Credits: 3
Description: How can music promote health and wellness in our lives and communities across the lifespan? For years, ethnomusicologists have been studying music around the world as a form of healing and a vehicle for community building and identity formation. One of the most important ways ethnomusicologists do research is by learning directly with and from individuals and communities through interviews, observant participation, and thoughtful engagement in communities of practice. In this interdisciplinary, hands-on, fieldwork course, we will explore the relationship between music and health through the creation of collaborative, community-based digital storytelling projects. Working in teams, students in this course will meet with individuals from diverse backgrounds from across the Tucson area to learn about their musical preferences and practices, document their musical life stories, and work to map the musical spaces and activities that have brought and continue to bring meaning, wellness, and health to their lives. To raise awareness about how music can be used to build and strengthen healthy communities, the stories students gather will be collected and shared as a growing creative toolkit to be shared with community members and healthcare providers.
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Dr. Martha Bhattacharya (marthab1@arizona.edu)
Schedule: Mondays 11:00am-11:50am, Tuesdays 9:00am-9L50am, Wednesdays 10:00am-10:50am
Credits: 3
Description: VIP-CUREs are research experiences where students work in teams to make discoveries while earning credit. As a group, our objective in this VIP-CURE is to predict and test candidate brain proteins participating in neuron-glia communication, aging and neurodegenerative disease. Students will learn computational approaches for "big data" analysis to generate a list of gene candidates, followed by the evaluation of these candidates in Drosophila (fruit flies) with learning and memory or locomotor behavioral experiments. Students will gain real research experience using hand-on techniques and will contribute to new knowledge about the way neurons and glia communicate in health and disease. In addition to technical skills and knowledge, students develop professional skills such as technical writing, communication, and teamwork. Students may take this course in multiple semesters and continue on projects or choose new teams each semester to develop parallel skills.
Prerequisites: Freshman Biology or equivalent OR Introductory Computer Science of Bioinformatics course or experience
Note: This VIP-CURE is at capacity for fall 2025. Visit Dr. Bhattacharya's website to learn more about applying to enroll.
Instructor: Dr. Kristy Slominski (slominski@arizona.edu)
Schedule: Fully online, 7 week - second
Credits: 3
Description: This course is designed to offer tools for engaging religious and cultural diversity within healthcare settings, which includes consideration of religious patients, religious healthcare workers, faith-based healthcare institutions, and the impact of religious communities on healthcare laws and services. To develop skills for navigating intercultural differences, students will practice applying academic approaches to religion to health-related case studies.
Prerequisites: None