Congratulations to all of our researchers and student researchers! We hope this experience will be an interesting, engaging and a good learning experience for all!
The Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program is created to assist in formalizing existing opportunities and to expand participation of undergraduate students in faculty-led research projects.
The pilot program during the summer of 2018 included students from all four UM-Dearborn colleges which were funded by the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, with supplemental funding from the College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters and the College of Engineering and Computer Science.
The goal of the SURE Program is to expose undergraduate students to potential educational and research-oriented career paths and provide them with guidance in the practice of research. These goals are accomplished through faculty mentorship and training while students participate in a faculty member’s research or scholarly project.
For the 2022 SURE program, there was a faculty informational session on February 24 via Zoom where the SURE team shared information about the faculty mentoring role, as well as the benefits and challenges related to working with undergraduate students, and the stipend provided to the students during this research opportunity ($3,200 over June, July, and August).
Faculty applications for SURE 2022 closed on March 11, 2022 - see the Program Guidelines page for more information.

If you are a student interested in participating, you must be a current undergraduate UM-Dearborn student who will not graduate before December 2022. We suggest talking with faculty about their research and encouraging them to apply for the SURE program. Once faculty projects are selected, we will provide information about any projects that need a student researcher.
"Understanding the research process by experiencing it firsthand helps students to understand the importance of research and the work involved. For me it showed me that research is an area I would like to be doing as a career."
- Kyle Ralston, 2019 SURE participant
If you have additional questions, please email the SURE faculty committee at umdearborn.sure.committee@umich.edu.
SURE 2022 Projects and Participants
CASL
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Iraqi Shi'i Refugees in Greater Detroit, Rose Wellman (faculty mentor), Lujayne Ridha (student researcher)
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NHE9 Mediated Regulation of Endosomal pH as a New Target for SARS-CoV-2 Therapy, Kalyan Kondapalli (faculty mentor), Perla Fares (student researcher)
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Effects of Property Tax Exemption Portability on Migration Flows, Antonios Koumpias (faculty mentor), Stuart Didonato (student researcher)
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Tuning the Magnetic Properties of Coupled Di-Blatter Radicals, Daniel Lawson (faculty mentor), Gerard Flores (student researcher)
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Textual Analysis of Responsibility Frames in Climate Change News Coverage, Emily Luxon (faculty mentor), Ahmed Makki (student researcher)
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Interactions Between Riboflavin and Riboflavin Binding Protein with Applications in Riboflavin Detection, Simona Marincean (faculty mentor), Diana Nichols (student researcher)
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Alley Activation as a Neighborhood Sustainability Strategy, Paul Draus (faculty mentor), Andrew Buendia (student researcher)
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Studies of the Interactions of Riboflavin Binding Protein and Copper, Sheila Smith (faculty mentor), Grant Schils (student researcher)
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Kinetics of a Single Kinesin in a Crowded Medium, Suvranta Tripathy (faculty mentor), Muaaz Akhtar (student researcher)
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Nanoparticle-guided Drug Delivery Ameliorates Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress After Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury, Zhi Zhang (faculty mentor), Megan Faulkner (student researcher)
CECS
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Maximizing Kids' engagement and Learning of STEAM Concepts Through Optimized Educational Toys Designs, Georges Ayoub (faculty mentor), Isabella Luckey (student researcher)
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Recycling of Cathode Materials in Used Li-ion Batteries, Lei Chen (faculty mentor), Matthew Ryall (student researcher)
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The Effect of Foot Orthoses on Knee Kinematics, Amanda Esquivel (faculty mentor), Regina Arriola (student researcher)
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Experimentation on Drone Testbed for 5G and Beyond Wireless Connectivity, Junaid Farooq (faculty mentor), Meher Jabbar (student researcher
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Measuring Bicycle Traffic Volume Using Pneumatic Bicycle Counter, Fred Feng (faculty mentor), Christopher Salisbury (student researcher)
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Virtual Reality and User Accessibility, Bruce Maxim (faculty mentor), Cody Lovelace (student researcher)
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A Smooth Start: Improving Linear Bead Uniformity by Controlling Flow in Polymer Additive Manufacturing Motion Startup Transients, Christopher Pannier (faculty mentor), Rene Lemus-Fugon (student researcher)
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Strengthening Drone-Assisted Micro-level Driving Decision Making by Edge Computing, Jie Shen (faculty mentor), Salwa Eljahmi (student researcher)
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Recommending Web Services Based on the Quality of Information via Comparison Testing, Zheng Song (faculty mentor), Daniel Feldman (student researcher)
CEHHS
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Environmental Health Research-to-Action: Building a Community Science Hub, Natalie Sampson (faculty mentor), Jesse Jarvis (student researcher)
COB
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Supply-base Evolution of an Electronic Vehicle Manufacturer Versus Traditional Automakers, Wayne Fu (faculty mentor), Phuong Dinh (student researcher)
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Empirical Investigation of Centrality and Credit Risk Propagation, Yan Alice Xie (faculty mentor), Jim Long (student researcher)