Part of the mission of Penn State is to give research opportunity to our talented undergraduates.  The undergraduate students who join the lab are expected to conduct significant, independent research of a quality that could lead to publication.  They will be mentored by a graduate student or postdoc and meet regularly with Dr. Bevilacqua. Our undergraduates are independent and highly motivated.  Over the years, they have co-authored multiple publications.  (See BLUE authors on our undergraduate publication page.)  Any relevant major is potentially acceptable (Chemistry, Biology, BMB, Physics, Chemical Engineering, Computer Science, Math…) so please don’t hesitate to ask.  To allow adequate time to learn technique and develop a thesis topic, students should begin research as Freshmen or Sophomores. Undergraduates are expected to sign up for 2 cr. of 294 or 494 per semester, which is the equivalent of 10 h/week in the lab, and should also work at least 1 full summer (10 weeks/summer), which will be for pay (see Dr. Bevilacqua for details).  All students  are expected to keep an electronic lab notebook and write a thesis on their research (Honors or SCIRES), which they defend orally in front of a committee consisting of several chemistry faculty. Undergraduates will also be provided the opportunity to present their research as a talk or poster at local and national meetings, and will attend and participate in our weekly lab meetings including both research and literature meetings.  Thank you for considering our lab for your undergraduate research! 

Please contact Dr. Bevilacqua with your interests.

Over the years, our undergraduates have received a number of awards and have gone on to excellent schools for the PhD and postdoc including Johns Hopkins, Yale, Columbia, U of Oregon, U of Texas, U Mass Med, and MIT. Prior undergraduate students and their positions can be found on the Lab Alumni page.