Undergraduate Research, Scholarly and Creative Activity Scholarship-New Freshman

Admitted first-year students are invited to apply for New Freshman URSCA Scholarships. These competitive $1,000 scholarships are awarded to students interested in exploring an area of academic interest in greater depth outside of their regular classes. The scholarships are for a student’s first year only and are paid out in $500 increments at the beginning of the fall and spring semesters. Through regular weekly contact with faculty mentors and other, more experienced students working in that area, recipients will have the opportunity to begin pursuing their scholarly interests in their first year at UW-Platteville. Recipients will be expected to present their accomplishments on campus by the end of their first year. For more information and to view the available research opportunities, view the list below under the scholarship criteria.

The following criteria shall be used in the annual selection of the recipient(s):
1. Applicants must be a first-year student
2. Applicants must have a high school GPA of 3.0 or higher

Students selected for the URSCA scholarship will have the opportunity to work in one of the areas below. Applicants will have to list their top 3 choices in order of preference. Every effort will be made to place recipients with a faculty mentor working in the recipient’s first or second choice area.

1. The History of Science and Technology in Europe (History)
2. Fluorescent staining of subcellular organelles within mammalian cell lines (Biology)
3. Montane Wildfire Research (Environmental Science)
4. Developing Novel Plant Disease Management Strategies (Agriculture)
5. Genetic Analyses of Plant-Microbe Symbioses (Agriculture)
6. Plant Growth Promoting Soil Microbes and Plant Health (Agriculture)
7. Cybersecurtiy in microgrids: Approaches to attaching the electric network (Computer Science and Software Engineering)
8. How to bridge the gap between current building energy performance and future net-zero goals (Mechanical Engineering)
9. Isaac Newton’s Chronology Revisited (Mechanical Engineering)
10. Material Processing Using 3D Printing (Mechanical Engineering)
11. Precision livestock farming: Harnessing data and machine learning for enhanced dairy calf health and welfare (Industrial and Systems Engineering)
12. Environmental Change Research: Advance understanding of past, current, and future environments and the integral role of people therein (Environmental Science)
13. Design and Development of Hele-Shaw apparatus for Flow Visualization (Mechanical Engineering)
14. Soft Robotics Hand Milker (Mechanical Engineering)
15. Calving Prediction Using a Multi-sensor-based Wearable Monitor (Mechanical Engineering)
16. Wheeled robotic compression stocking assistant device (Mechanical Engineering)
17. Developing on-farm biochar management strategies for environmental sustainability (Agriculture)