Do I have a say on who will be my research mentor?

Since Emory students participate in SURE as part of a long-term project, they apply to the program already having identified their mentor and research project. Oxford College students may submit a proposal or list faculty of interest.

Visiting students indicate the names of several faculty with whom they would like to work. We try to match award recipients to a mentor in their first choice field; if this is not possible, we select a mentor from the second choice field, and so on. The mentor-fellow matching process is time-consuming for us (because much thought and planning go into it), and is usually quite successful. Applicants who are offered a position with SURE are notified of their mentor assignments as soon as these are available, receive a description of the work that is done in that laboratory, and are expected to accept or decline the offer by a given deadline. Applicants are encourage to discuss their research goals and interests in the essay section of the application.

Students at the AU Center, Emory, Georgia State and Georgia Tech may choose to do research under the guidance of faculty at other Atlanta institutions. These students will need to contact faculty members and establish a mentoring arrangement, and submit a research proposal along with other application materials. Atlanta-area proposals should feature a cross-institution component; that is, the student will work with a faculty member at another institution, and the collaboration will continue throughout the academic year. Such applications will receive special consideration. Simply attach your proposal and your research mentor's support letter to the non-Emory application packet.

Interested students can contact Cathy Quinones at (404) 727-3439 or by e-mail at cquinon@emory.edu for additional information.

What if we don't get along or I dislike the project?

In the rare cases where students have arrived to campus and decided they do not wish to work at their assigned laboratory, we have always found alternate arrangements to the student's satisfaction. We urge fellows to trust us on these selections. If problems arise once the fellow arrives, we will resolve the situation then by discussing the situation with both mentor and student and if necessary, by assigning a new one.