You will earn 6 research credits over 6 weeks, conducting faculty-supervised, hands-on, directed study research projects with results that will culminate in the preparation of a research paper. You will complete a minimum of 240 hours on research in and out of the laboratory.
Faculty mentors will work closely with you to direct your continued growth and knowledge development in the chosen research topic discipline.
| Course ID | Title | Credits | Syllabus |
|---|---|---|---|
| SCOT RSLW 392S | International Independent Research in STEM Fields | 6 |
Requirements of entry to Life Science Projects:
Requirements of entry to Chemistry projects:
Requirements of entry to Psychology projects:
Microbes are able to colonize natural environments in which wide ranges of temperature, pH or osmolarity are found. Modern domestic and urban environments can present equally challenging conditions and the ability of microbes to exist in these niches can pose potential health risks. The aim of this project is to identify the specific types of microorganisms in various urban environments and their pathogenicity. The project will use conventional microbiological techniques to sample from a range of urban environments that present thermal challenge and identify mesophilic and thermophilic organisms able to survive and grow in these conditions. The properties of these bacteria will be analysed and identification will be attempted by sequencing of the 16s rRNA gene. Students on the project will develop skills in microbiology and molecular biology.
Relevant Majors: Biological Sciences
Environmental issues with freshwater bacteria include the proliferation of disease-causing pathogens from human and animal waste, as well as the spread of antibiotic resistance genes into the environment, which poses a long-term public health threat. The aim of this project is to characterise the bacteria of faecal origin in a local watercourse, to establish which indicator organisms are present and determine if any are pathogenic to humans. The properties of these bacteria will be analysed using traditional microbiological methods, including growth on selective and differential media, followed by sequencing of the 16s rRNA gene. Students on the project will develop skills in environmental monitoring, microbiology and molecular biology.
Relevant Majors: Biological Sciences
The nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans has become one of the most widely used model organisms for nearly every aspect of biology. Its fully mapped genome and conserved biological pathways allow for powerful genetic screening approaches. The aim of the project will be to screen populations of C. elegans to identify any phenotypic changes that may be biologically interesting and attempt to further characterise the mutants. This will be achieved using ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS), a mutagen that induces direct mutations in DNA. In addition, C. elegans is an excellent model organism for the study of addiction to compounds such as alcohol and caffeine, and numerous others, areas that you can also develop and investigate during the project.
Relevant Majors: Biological Sciences
Microbes are able to colonize natural environments in which wide ranges of temperature, pH or osmolarity are found. Modern domestic and urban environments can present equally challenging conditions and the ability of microbes to exist in these niches can pose potential health risks. The aim of this project is to identify the specific types of microorganisms in various urban environments and their pathogenicity. The project will use conventional microbiological techniques to sample from a range of urban environments that present thermal challenge and identify mesophilic and thermophilic organisms able to survive and grow in these conditions. The properties of these bacteria will be analysed and identification will be attempted by sequencing of the 16s rRNA gene. Students on the project will develop skills in microbiology and molecular biology.
Relevant Majors: Biological Sciences
Participants in the University of Glasgow’s Advanced Chemistry Research projects collaborate with experienced faculty and fellow scholars. The work provides hands-on experience with state-of-the-art instrumentation, data analysis techniques, and experimental design, while cultivating critical thinking and problem-solving skills essential for professional research. All projects offer an exceptional opportunity to contribute to meaningful scientific advancement in the following areas:
Please indicate your area of interest on your Application materials. There are six total spots available.
Previous studies have revealed social anxiety can negatively bias our interpretations of social interactions. Experienced events, such as meeting new people, are often associated with negative self-evaluations, and this interferes with our ability to retrieve specific details accurately. However, many studies investigating social anxiety and memory often use experimental designs that lack ecological validity. Instead, this study will employ cutting edge virtual reality technology to mimic different real life social interactions and thereby provide more robust and valid assessment of the interaction between anxiety and memory recall.
Relevant Majors: Psychology, Statistics
The rapid rise of AI-generated imagery makes it essential to understand how these visuals influence our judgments and decision-making across different contexts. Research using real images shows that when an image is relevant to a topic (such as accompanying a news headline or statement) we are more likely to believe the statement is true, a phenomenon known as the “truthiness effect.” As AI images can be created from almost any prompt, there is concern that highly topical but fabricated images could amplify perceived truthfulness of associated information, even when that information is false. This study aims to investigate how AI-generated images shape the way we process and evaluate online information.
Relevant Majors: Psychology, Statistics
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual interaction through video-based platforms such as Facetime, Zoom, or Teams has become commonplace. How do these platforms stand up against face-to-face communication? When speaking face-to-face, cues related to shared attention enable the regulation of turn-taking and help people come to a common understanding. Virtual environments are more challenging due to temporal asynchrony and the lack of a common spatial reference frame. Our proposal is to investigate how the attentional states of one's peers in an online interaction affect the quality of the interaction, feelings of social connection, and memories for what has been said.
To investigate this question, we will run experiments in which participants will take part in an online meeting. The content of the meeting will be held constant, while the attentive or inattentive non-verbal behaviours of other members are manipulated. Are non-verbal attentive (or inattentive) behaviours of audience members 'contagious', influencing the attentional states (and thus, memories) of other members in the meeting? While previous work has shown such 'attention contagion' effects in the context of watching lectures (Forrin et al., 2021), to date there are no studies documenting such effects in online meetings, which involve divided attention due to their interactive and improvisational nature. In this project, we will collect eyetracking data along with behavioural responses. Participants will wear a set of tracking glasses that measure features of the eye at a high sampling rate. Eyetracking data offers a rich potential for data exploration, including not just measures of gaze direction, but also physiological measures of attentiveness such as blink rate and pupil dilation.
Relevant Majors: Psychology, Statistics
Project summary: The uniformity illusion describes the spreading of the features of a central patch to an entire image caused by an imbalance in accuracy between foveal and peripheral vision. A neural correlate of this imbalance could be cortical magnification, under which a disproportionate territory of the primary visual cortex is devoted to foveal compared to peripheral parts of the visual field. If this is the case, reducing the size of the central patch might eventually induce a reversal of the illusion. In this project we will use a behavioural paradigm to investigate whether such a reversal occurs and, if so, what patch size constitutes the point of subjective equality where the illusion is equally likely to spread inwards and outwards.
Relevant Majors: Psychology, Statistics
Change blindness happens when we fail to recognise a difference in the environment because our attention was drawn elsewhere (see some examples in this video). Several features influence the likelihood of a change being noticed, such as its position in the visual field, its intrinsic saliency, or its relevance for you (e.g. you have a higher change to recognise your own name but not someone else’s). In this project, we will use a behavioural paradigm to investigate these features and how they interact to induce or break change blindness for different types of stimulation.
Relevant Majors: Psychology, Statistics
| Grade Range | Description | Suggested U.S. Equivalent |
| A1-A5 | First Class | A |
| B1-B3 | Second Class Upper | B+ |
| C1-C3 | Second Class Lower | B |
| D1-D3 | Third Class/Pass | C |
| E1 and below | Fail | F |