Current CURE Offerings
Talk to your advisor today about enrolling in one of these Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) for Fall 2024!
*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. Li Xu (lxu@arizona.edu)
Schedule: Fully online in Summer II (July 1, 2024 - Aug 16, 2024). Weekly synchronous meetings Tuesdays 4pm-7pm. *Students are encouraged to participate in the meetings but they are not required. Meetings will be recorded in Zoom and will be available through D2L.
Credits: 3
Description: Data literacy and data presentation are key skills that are prerequisites for data-driven professions. In this class, students will learn how to understand, question, and work with data from various public community data resources. Students will study the nature of data; apply quantitative techniques to analyze data; design and present data visualizations; and interpret their research findings. Statistical analyses, data processing techniques, and software utilization will be presented. Students will be prepared to ask important questions and solve problems from the perspectives of data science and public health.
Prerequisites: None
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. Janelle Lamoreaux (jlamoreaux@arizona.edu)
Schedule: In-person, Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:30-10:45am
Credits: 3
Description: Principles in the comparative study of social systems, types of social structure.
Prerequisites: ANTH 200 or 9 units of sociology.
Instructor: Dr. Li Xu (lxu@arizona.edu)
Schedule: Asynchronous online with optional weekly meetings (day/time TBD)
Credits: 3
Description: This course will lay a foundation for students to understand how to process, analyze, and visualize data. Topics include data collection and integration, exploratory data analysis, statistical inference and modeling, machine learning, and data visualization. The emphasis of the course topics will be placed on integration and synthesis of concepts and their application to solving problems. Students will explore these topics using software tools.
Prerequisites: APCV 302 and APCV 320. Prior Python programming experience is required. Must be a CAST student.
Instructor: Dr. Na Zuo (nazuo@arizona.edu)
Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:30pm-1:45pm, in-person
Credits: 3
Description: Few questions are more fundamental than how we feed the world’s people. Yet, the coexistence of food insecurity and food waste begs the question: how can we feed the population efficiently, sustainably, and equitably? This course familiarizes students with the food economy and its efficiencies while identifying where gaps occur as food flows from producers to consumers. These gaps frequently lead to food insecurity with a less healthy populous, as well as food waste, an issue in more developed societies. By examining 1) the food supply chain and markets, 2) food insecurity, 3) food loss and waste along the food supply chain and 4) food policies through the lens of marginalized populations, students will gain insights into the economic forces that shape the food system. This course stimulates critical thinking and problem solving through economic, nutritional science and policy-making perspectives, which may lead to potential resolutions for those who struggle to afford and consume healthy, wholesome foods.
Prerequisites: None
Instructors: Dr. Na Zuo (nazuo@arizona.edu) and Dr. Satheesh Aradhyula (satheesh@arizona.edu)
Schedule: Mondays and Wednesdays, 9am-10:15am, in-person
Credits: 3-4
Description: This course gives students hands-on experience with research in the broad area of food and resource economics. Students practice collecting, assembling, and analyzing data for empirical work. Using real world data, students learn to answer important research questions. As a university designated CURE (Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences) course, this course helps students build quantitative skills with authentic research experience.
Prerequisites: AREC 239 (Introduction to Statistics and Data Analysis) or an equivalent statistics course.
Instructors: Dr. Bonnie Hurwitz (bhurwitz@arizona.edu) and Alise Ponsero (aponsero@arizona.edu)
Schedule: Asynchronous Online
Credits: 3 credits
Description: Despite a growing demand for data scientists, university training in science ethics, code licensing and best reproducibility practices are not generalized for undergraduates. In this CURE, students will conduct an assessment of the current landscape and the evolution of accessibility, documentation and reproducibility practices in bioinformatics. The CURE will be a two-credit course in the Department of Biosystems Engineering accessible to students from any college. In this CURE, students will learn and reflect upon best practices for open science and science reproducibility. Several practical skills will also be developed such as science communication, as well as the use of computational tools for code versioning and documentation.
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Dr. Martha Whitaker (marthaw@arizona.edu)
Schedule: HWRS349A is fully online. HWRS349B modality will be announced soon. HWRS350 is in-person, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11-11:50am. Various lab times are available, see UAccess for more information.
Credits: 3 credits
Description: 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. Mark Beilstein (mbeilstein@arizona.edu) and Erika Haws (hawserika@arizona.edu)
Schedule: In-person, Mondays and Wednesdays from 1:00-3:30pm.
Credits: 4
Description: CROPPS Inc. – Biological Engineering covers fundamental principles in molecular and cellular biology and basic genetics. Emphasis is placed on biological function at the molecular level, with a focus on the structure and regulation of genes, the structure and synthesis of proteins, how these molecules are integrated into cells, and how these cells are integrated into multicellular systems. Students will apply what they learn in a concurrent lab to generate resources that will be used to dissect root-to-shoot signaling in plants. These resources will help biologist engineer plants with increased nitrogen use efficiency, a critical goal for increasing the sustainability of crop production.
Prerequisites: MCB181L/R or high school AP Biology equivalent.