Princeton Correspondents on Undergraduate Research 2026

Author: Alexis Wu

  • Need a New Place to Study? 4 Niche Study Locations for all Princeton Students!

    As I enter my sixth! semester at Princeton, I find myself still asking the age-old question: where should I go and work today? The challenge with finding the right study space is that they’re frequently mood and assignment-specific.

    Image of sunset over Princeton Graduate College, golf course, Forbes backyard. Red Adirondack chair in foreground.

    View of the Forbes backyard, taken by author.

    PCUR alumna Nanako Shirai’s 2018 post on finding study spaces on campus is an incredible resource to help you identify the best study space based on your study needs. In this post, I’ll highlight some additional study spaces you could explore this spring. Instead of going by the type of assignment you’re working on, I’ll share four new suggestions on study spaces based on the kind of study environment you prefer. This might help you choose study spaces at which you could complete multiple items on your to-do list.

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  • HCI is for Everyone: A Glimpse into Princeton’s Human-Computer Interaction Reading List

    Monochrome split screen image of the Mother of All Demos, screenshotted from the Control Devices section

    From left to right: Three control devices (a special keyset, a standard keyboard, and a mouse). Photo credits: The Doug Engelbart Institute.

    This semester, I’m taking COS 436: Human-Computer Interaction, taught by Professor Andrés Monroy-Hernández and Professor Parastoo Abtahi. The course explores foundational theories and current research in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), focusing on interactive and social computing across diverse domains like artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), accessibility, information visualization, and human-robot interaction. 

    As the semester comes to a close, I reflect on how the readings shaped my understanding of HCI and technology more broadly. I found that the readings move beyond just the HCI classroom, offering profound insights on how technology shapes our lives and the importance of design considerations in emerging technologies. Given their value for even those who have no background in computer science, here are three readings I found particularly exciting.

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  • Looking at Qualitative Research through Junior Papers: An Interview with Albert Lee ‘24

    Headshot of Albert Lee standing in Colonial Club, wearing a blue suit.

    Albert Lee ‘24 is the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Chair at Colonial Club, a member of the Students for Prison Education, Abolition, and Reform (SPEAR), and former Senior Writer for The Daily Princetonian.

    As a junior, a hot topic for many of my friends lately has been their junior research and senior theses. In brainstorming ideas for this piece, I also thought about the incredible amount of learning that takes place in just a semester. That’s when I got the idea for this paper—to hear from seniors about their recent experiences conducting research for their Junior Papers. So, I reached out to Albert Lee ‘24, a senior majoring in Sociology and pursuing a certificate in Journalism.

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  • A Look Inside TigerResearch: A Gateway to Princeton Professors’ Research Interests

    Last year, I wrote an article on The Creation of TigerResearch, a platform created by three Princeton undergraduates (Vivek Kolli ‘24, Eric Ahn ‘24, and Alex Zhang ‘24) to help students to easily discover Princeton professors and learn more about their research focuses. Through my interview with Vivek, I was able to see how students at Princeton take their entrepreneurial ideas and bring them to life, creating new solutions that help other students become more engaged with research on campus.

    Image of the TigerResearch homepage

    TigerResearch homepage welcome message

    This year, as I continue to explore my own research interests, I find myself returning to TigerResearch. I’m interested in learning more about my professors’ research backgrounds, particularly in what their latest and current work is on and how it relates to the discussions and material we cover in class. So, I wanted to take this opportunity to delve deeper into TigerResearch.

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  • Productivity Apps: Three Hidden Gems for Getting Organized

    As I was reading through old PCUR posts, I came across PCUR Alumni Taylor Griffith’s 2017 post on Productivity Apps and managing your work. With the continuous development of new organization and productivity apps, it can be challenging to find what works best for you. Though some are fierce Google Calendar or sticky note users, I wanted to share three (free!) apps I’ve found to be incredibly useful.

    Image of an annotated course reading with highlighting and notes in the margins

    Example of how I annotate readings with CollaNote

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  • Introducing the Sophomore Research Seminars: An Interview with Professor Emma Ljung

    Image of Professor Emma Ljung teaching a seminar
    Professor Emma Ljung teaching in a seminar.

    With course selection coming around the corner, the sheer number of opportunities can be overwhelming. Choosing courses can be doubly challenging for rising sophomores who are finishing up their prerequisite courses and trying to figure out what they even want to major in. I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce a new and exciting opportunity for students interested in research—the Sophomore Research Seminars.

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  • Effortless Perfection at Princeton: An Introduction to PCUR’s 2023 Seasonal Series

    Image of PPP's Perspective Polaroids, a project from 2019
    PPP’s 2019 “Perspective Polaroids.” Students took polaroid photos and wrote down a reminder for themselves of the things and people they care about.

    I’m extremely excited to introduce PCUR’s 2023 seasonal series—a collaboration between PCUR and the Princeton Perspective Project (PPP). To start the series, I wanted to introduce PPP and why the two teams are working together this April.

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  • Exploring Places and Creating New Spaces: An Interview with Nal Xaviera ‘25

    Nal Xaviera, class of 2025

    On campus, Nal Xaviera ’25 is a member of Engineers Without Borders: Kenya, Community House After School Programs, and an assistant for the Visual Resources Department.

    College is a wonderful place to explore your interests. It’s a time to meet new people, engage with different disciplines, and explore what you’re truly curious about. Perhaps one of the most apt examples of such opportunities is the Office of International Programs’s International Internship Program (IIP).

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  • No Experience Necessary: An Interview with Delaan Nedd ’25

    Delaan Nedd '25 and the Bocarsly Lab

    Delaan Nedd ’25 (second from the left in the top row) and the Bocarsly Lab. Photo from Bocarsly Lab News.

    As we enter December, it seems like summer is far, far away, but it’s a good time to start thinking about summer plans if you haven’t already. If you’re interested in research, there are numerous summer research programs whose applications are currently open (the Office of Undergraduate Research has a great list here).

    For students with no experience with research, just getting started can be daunting. I wanted to hear from students whose first hands-on exposure to research was through Princeton’s research programs, so I interviewed Delaan Nedd ‘25. Delaan spent this past summer in the Princeton Department of Chemistry’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship in Chemistry (SURF-C) program. SURF-C is a nine-week program for first and second-year undergraduate students to work on cutting-edge chemistry research alongside Princeton faculty, post-docs, graduate students, and other undergrads. What’s exciting is that the research Delaan contributed to during SURF-C was recently published in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Dalton Transactions journal—check out the full paper here!

    In this interview, we discuss his experience with on-campus summer research both in and out of the lab, as well as how the summer further informed his academic and career interests.

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  • Need Resources For Your Next Paper? Visit the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library!

    Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library

    Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library

    In this post, I share my experience of requesting resources from Princeton’s Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library for a research paper in ART102/ARC102: An Introduction to the History of Architecture. I took the Spring 2022 iteration of the course, taught by Professor Basile Baudez and Professor Samuel Holzman. The course provided an overview of architectural history from ancient Egypt to the modern-day through key monuments and architectural movements.

    One of my favorite parts of ART102 was our semester-long research project. Students have the opportunity to delve deeper into the history of any building in the Princeton community. My peers covered a wide range of buildings, including Firestone Library, the Graduate College, and the University Chapel. Inspired by my involvement with the Princeton University Art Museum as a student tour guide, I chose to research Bainbridge House (now repurposed as Art@Bainbridge, one of the Museum’s gallery spaces on Nassau Street).

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