{"doi":"10.35459/tbp.2021.000199","title":"Adapting Undergraduate Research to Remote Work to Increase Engagement","abstract":"Demand for undergraduate research experiences typically outstrips the available laboratory positions, which could have been exacerbated during the remote work conditions imposed by the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic. This report presents a collection of examples of how undergraduates have been engaged in research under pandemic work restrictions. Examples include a range of projects related to fluid dynamics, cancer biology, nanomedicine, circadian clocks, metabolic disease, catalysis, and environmental remediation. Adaptations were made that included partnerships between remote and in-person research students and students taking on more data analysis and literature surveys, as well as data mining, computational, and informatics projects. In many cases, these projects engaged students who otherwise would have worked in traditional bench research, as some previously had. Several examples of beneficial experiences are reported, such as the additional time spent studying the literature, which gave students a heightened sense of project ownership, and more opportunities to integrate feedback into writing and research. Additionally, the more intentional and regular communication necessitated by remote work proved beneficial for all team members. Finally, online seminars and conferences have made participation possible for many more students, especially those at predominantly undergraduate institutions. Participants aim to adopt these beneficial practices in our research groups even after pandemic restrictions end.Participating in undergraduate research provides many benefits to students, including increased science knowledge, confidence, and persistence in science (1–3). These benefits are especially important for students from groups traditionally underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) (4, 5). However, the positive effects of undergraduate research can be dampened by a mismatch between the desires both on the part of students to participate in research and faculty to provide such opportunities on the one hand and the lack of available capacity in faculty research laboratories to meet student demand on the other hand.These challenges were expected to be exacerbated by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, which in many areas resulted in campuses being closed or at least the density of personnel in research laboratories being dramatically reduced to prevent virus spread. In spring 2020, student dormitories across the United States were evacuated, and only essential workers continued to work in person, with all others transitioning to remote work. By mid-summer, in some areas workers began to repopulate research laboratories, but usually at mandated reduced densities. At some institutions, undergraduates were not allowed to return to laboratory research. This situation presented substantial challenges to integrating undergraduates into research laboratories, both because of the density limits and because of the general need for closer supervision and more hands-on training of undergraduate researchers.Several recent publications highlight creative solutions to teaching laboratories, including course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), during pandemic-related remote teaching (6, 7). Solutions implemented in project labs and CUREs included pivoting to data and statistical analysis, modeling and simulations, experimental design and troubleshooting, and literature searching (8–14). Although there is no virtual substitute for learning hands-on laboratory skills, research skills and practices can be taught without access to “wet” laboratories. In some ways, undergraduate research with its typical focus on individual student projects and more individualized student-mentor and student cohort interactions posed more of a challenge during the COVID responses (15); for example, whereas many students were completing required courses and thus had to be provided with alternative experiences, undergraduate research can","journal":"The Biophysicist","year":2021,"id":208447,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":3,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9548,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":795045,"name":"Sara M. Hashmi","orcid":"0000-0002-2298-4392","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":795046,"name":"A‐Andrew D. Jones","orcid":"0000-0003-3840-8039","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":795568,"name":"Vasiliki Lykourinou","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":432361,"name":"Mary Jo Ondrechen","orcid":"0000-0003-2456-4313","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":257648,"name":"Srinivas Sridhar","orcid":"0000-0003-1605-0734","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":775764,"name":"Anne L. van de Ven","orcid":"0000-0002-0347-4004","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":795047,"name":"L. Waters","orcid":"0000-0002-6850-0189","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":578319,"name":"Penny J. Beuning","orcid":"0000-0002-7770-022X","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":795044,"name":"Susan Cohen","orcid":"0000-0003-1783-0011","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":40,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:51:57.582057Z","pmid":"36909739","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}