Decade of discovery

 “It is not every day that you are able to make a lasting impact through your work, especially as an undergraduate,” says Avery Cook-Porter, a political science major who has dedicated her summer in the program to examining and categorizing court documents. “UHP Discover also allows students to research developing topics, which makes our work not only necessary, but increasingly impactful.”

Every summer for the past ten years, UHP Discover has connected undergraduate students in the University Honors Program (UHP) to a unique array of opportunities in original interdisciplinary research. Following a competitive application process in which they’re matched one-to-one with leading UC faculty across the Uptown, Clermont and Blue Ash campuses as their mentors, UHP Discover participants engage in full-time, paid summer research in non-STEMM disciplines: the humanities, social sciences, education, business and the arts.

The program is one of the UHP’s signature pre-approved honors experiences. As such, it’s available only to UHP students and has become an element of the UHP that prospective applicants often cite as having strongly influenced their decision to apply. In recent years, the program has continued to grow. 2024 saw its faculty partnerships expand, for the first time, to Digital Futures, while 2026 marks a record number of participants, with more than 50 student-faculty matches. Cullen underscores the depth of the connection between UHP Discover’s mission and the UHP’s vision at large: “As we celebrate this milestone, we also celebrate the continued growth of a program that embodies the Honors mission of developing global citizen scholars who lead innovative efforts toward solving the world's complex problems.”

While it’s a fixture of University Honors today, UHP Discover started as a small-scale project with an ambitious goal: to build interdisciplinary and cross-college collaboration by creating a hub for one-on-one mentorship from faculty outside the STEMM umbrella. This represented a brand-new approach to research within UC as a whole, not just the UHP; while the UHP and university already supported an array of undergraduate research opportunities connected to STEMM fields, students in other disciplines who wanted to develop research skills previously had to forge their own paths.

“Pretty much everything that I’ve done here has been something new for me,” says Alex Smith, a rising fourth-year medical sciences major, as he leans over a 1920s blueprint depicting the architect’s original vision for the Church of the Annunciation. He’s speaking from the rectory, surrounded by rolls of plans and other documents related to the church’s design, construction and history. Until recently, this archive had waited, mostly unused, in a parish basement; over the course of this summer, following the documents’ rescue by Megan Grender (of the parish), Smith has helped Grender record its features under the guidance of Isabel Potworowski, PhD, assistant professor of architecture at the College of Design, Architecure, Art, and Planning (DAAP), as he assists with her ongoing research on church architecture in Ohio.

“I’m pre-med, so being able to study architecture has been so different for me… to look at research applied to a different scope of practice,” he adds, gesturing at the delicate tracery of white ink that marks an ornamental carving over the church doors. Potworowski, too, speaks to the benefit of working with student researchers from a faculty perspective: “Archival research can be isolating, sometimes. So it’s great to spend time in archives, but it’s also nice to discuss it with somebody who’s looking at some of the same sources, and is interested, and can share ideas.”

Greta Frantz, a rising fourth-year neuroscience major in A&S, is also working with a DAAP faculty member, Vikas Mehta, PhD, professor of urbanism. “We’re going through six different neighborhoods in Cincinnati, trying to look at all of the public spaces and private spaces that support public life,” Mehta explains.

The two of them have convened in the DAAP library, beside a display of snow globes, to discuss Frantz’s observations from the previous week. “Ultimately, the idea is to say, ‘Can the built environment support a society where people can actually depend on each other in times of crisis?’” Frantz’s involvement in this process is very direct: She travels to local parks, libraries and businesses in the neighborhoods under study, observes how those spaces are used and reports her findings to Mehta. “People have very specific relationships with these establishments,” Frantz says, reflecting on her observational experience. “It’s been eye-opening.”

All UHP Discover projects require hands-on research. For some, that research centers on digital practices. Avery Cook-Porter’s work with Michael Loadenthal, PhD, on a long-running research endeavor called the Prosecution Project (tPP), requires her to sort and code court records for tPP’s database. Cook-Porter and her predecessors with UHP Discover have “contributed hundreds of new cases to the data and reviewed thousands for accuracy,” Loadenthal says, describing the project overall as “a collaborative and empowering environment with real-world policy relevance.”

Cook-Porter, for her part, finds the work intensely relevant to her professional interests as a pre-law student, saying that it has “provided me with the unique opportunity to gain real-world experience and develop my cross-cutting skills early into my educational journey.”

Manavi Pradhan, too, matched with a project that closely aligned with her major and professional interests: investigating what her mentor, Keshar Ghimire, PhD, describes as “the impact of various AI-assisted teaching-learning strategies on student learning outcomes.” 

Pradhan is especially excited about the overlap between her previous coursework and the material she’s explored this summer, saying, “I’ve been able to take everything I've learned in the classroom, like data analysis, statistical modeling and inference, and apply those econometric methods to a tangible study.”

Ghimire, an associate professor of economics at UC’s Blue Ash campus, adds: “For me, the biggest benefit is receiving student input into projects, which can be instrumental in determining the direction of some projects, especially those related to teaching and learning. I also love sharing my passion and skills with the next generation of researchers.”

Pradhan, who cites the balance between accountability and independence as key to her success this summer, agrees, saying, “I've been able to take ownership of my work while still knowing that I have support whenever I need it.”

The common thread among this summer’s students and mentors alike, which UHP leadership echoes, is their hope that UHP Discover will continue to serve a growing range of projects.

Pradhan, who hadn’t initially imagined herself in undergraduate research, says: “It is already an amazing program, but I hope even more students get the opportunity to participate, especially those who, like me, might not view themselves as the ‘research type’ at first.”

Cullen, too, underscores the broad impact that the program continues to have on the UC community: “UHP Discover continues to be a program that invites and celebrates curiosity in all its forms, proving that impactful research happens everywhere at UC.”

Featured image at top: rolled 1920s blueprints ready for study. Photo/Ellie Joyce for the UHP.