Internal Award
US Citizenship Not Required

This fellowship is for full-time, currently enrolled Northeastern undergraduates who demonstrate a great degree of independence and initiative in the development and execution of research or creative projects. Applicants should possess substantial prior engagement with the frameworks, methods, and techniques of research or creative endeavor in their field (whether through independent projects, employment, or co-op), or should articulate the connection between their experience and the proposed project in a way that demonstrates their readiness to take on significant work at a high level.

Students may meet these criteria and apply for this fellowship at any stage of their Northeastern career, but it is most common for students to apply going into their penultimate or final year of coursework. We want to know how you are prepared to be a Trail-Blazer—and where the trail that you blaze will lead.

Trail-Blazer Fellowships are awarded to individual students, and that student must be working with a Northeastern faculty mentor.

The following criteria distinguish the Trail-Blazer Fellowship:

Novelty and Importance: Projects are expected to make a significant, original contribution to an intellectual or creative field of endeavor—either to blaze a trail either within a domain in which the applicant has substantial expertise, or to blaze a trail that innovatively links the applicant’s expertise to a question or problem not typically approached from that perspective. Applications should contextualize the project amid current work in the field and make clear the project’s unique contribution.

Independence: Trail-Blazer Fellowships are intended to support independent, student-initiated undergraduate research and creative endeavor. Applicants should demonstrate meaningful autonomy in the design and implementation of the project. These awards are therefore distinct from research positions contemplated in prior grant applications, from the traditional work of a research assistant, and from the type of work supported by the other awards in the PEAK Award Sequence. In the case of science and engineering projects, students are expected to make their own clearly defined intellectual contribution in the context of the mentor’s research program.

In addition to the above, Trail-Blazer Fellowship applications are evaluated for their overall quality, feasibility, strength of mentorship, anticipated outcomes, and potential to contribute to a student’s intellectual, personal, and professional development.

Feasibility will be demonstrated through preparation of a detailed project timeline, outlining a project scope appropriate to the expectation that students will dedicate at least nine weeks of full-time effort (40 hours per week) to the completion of their project. Accordingly, students must maintain a regular presence at their research site (whether the Northeastern University campus or an off-campus research site) for the duration of the project. Projects must occur during the Summer sessions. Feasibility also encompasses the safety of the student researcher (particularly with regard to travel) and the requirement that all research comply with regulations on research involving human subjects or vertebrate animals. Feasibility of the project is enhanced when projects are undertaken in the student’s field of study and/or when relevant skills or expertise have been developed through previous research, creative, co-op, or service activities.

Mentoring: Students are expected to establish and maintain a schedule of regular contact with their faculty mentor. The Mentoring Plan should demonstrate a willingness on both the student’s and the mentor’s part to maintain this relationship despite challenges such as geographic distance, travel, and limited connectivity.

Outcomes: Trail-Blazer projects are expected to produce outcomes in a format appropriate to the subject matter and field of inquiry. How will your project’s results be shared with the world: as a film, a website, a prototype, a performance, a scholarly article? In addition to producing and submitting this research or creative product, Trail-Blazer recipients commit to attending weekly professional development meetings, presenting their work for other members of the Northeastern community in the fall, and locating an appropriate venue for external review of their work.

Applicant Development: Projects are evaluated on the alignment of the project with students’ learning and life goals. How will this project move you toward a powerful and provocative potential future, including graduate school, fellowships, and employment opportunities?

Fellowships are competitive and funding is not guaranteed.

The PEAK Trail Blazer Fellowship offers up to $6000  as a stipend.  This money can be divided with your PI to cover the costs of project materials if necessary. PEAK Fellowship funds cannot be applied to tuition.

Fellowship funds are distributed to the university account of the project’s faculty mentor if used for project materials.

All Trail-Blazer applicants benefit from an intensive, guided series of project-development workshops, and fellowship recipients are invited to present their work to the university community at the annual RISE Expo.

The Trail-Blazer application consists of a personal statement, a project proposal, a project timeline, an annotated bibliography, a current transcript, a CV/resumé, and (for creative applicants) a supplementary portfolio

Personal Statement: In 500-750 words, please share your intellectual biography with our committee. The following prompts may be helpful:

• What experiences, values, or commitments have led you to conduct this research project? How did you come to be interested in work in this major/discipline?
• What previous experience do you have conducting research in this field? This can be through course work, previous research, co-op, or independent work. What methodological skills have you mastered, and how will they be useful to you in this work?
• Research is often unpredictable and unstructured. How have you demonstrated flexibility and adaptability in your professional and/or intellectual life? How have you managed unexpected results or failure?
• What professional, intellectual, and personal skills do you hope to gain by conducting independent research this summer
• What’s next? How does this project connect to your long-term professional and intellectual goals?

Project Proposal: In 1000-1250 words, please address the prompts below

• Project Background, Significance and Objectives: What question, problem, or creative area do you hope to explore? What are the objectives of this research? This section should provide important background information for your project, contextualizing the project in terms of the broader work in the field. What current question or problem in your field are you trying to answer? What is unique or innovative about your approach? Please include references to previous work on this issue that have shaped your thinking and/or other projects that are currently underway.
• Project Design and Methodology: This important section should outline your methodology—that is, the theory and techniques on which your project will rely—as well as a specific course of action for carrying the project through to completion. This statement should include an assessment of resources required for project planning and implementation and a consideration of potential project challenges.
• Mentoring Plan that outlines the anticipated frequency and mode (e.g., in person, email, remotely) of your communications with your faculty advisor. Be sure to account for conditions such as travel (yours or your advisor’s), time zone differences, and the like, and be sure to discuss the Mentoring Plan with your advisor before submitting it.
• Outcomes Statement that describes the anticipated outcomes or products of your project. (Note that the research product is different from the required final project report. The product is the actual thing you expect to have made: a paper written, a portfolio assembled, a prototype crafted, a film screened, a website launched, etc.) Detail how you will share the results of your project, including potential venues to share your work outside Northeastern (e.g. a discipline-specific conference, specialized publication, etc.) in addition to submitting the work internally to RISE, which is expected of all recipients.

Project Timeline: Detail what you intend to do and when you intend to do it. Structure this like a syllabus, week by week, dividing your project into steps and apportioning your time appropriately. While this timeline can include pre-project preparations, the timeline should cover a minimum of nine weeks actively working on the project and exclusively dedicated to its execution. Students cannot attend classes or participate on co-op during the duration of their projects. Projects must begin after the first day of Summer classes (you cannot start in the spring semester).

Annotated bibliography: Include works cited in the proposal and other key sources you anticipate using in your research. An annotated bibliography provides a brief synopsis of each listed work, explaining its relevance and applicability to your project. The annotated bibliography should include at least 10 references.

Current transcript and CV/resume:

Confirmation of IRB/IACUC Approval. If you have received official confirmation that your project does not require this approval, attach that correspondence here, as well. No project involving human or vertebrate animal subjects will be funded, and no such research may commence, until the appropriate approvals have been secured.

Supplementary Materials. Applicants in the fine arts should include a portfolio of 5-10 examples of your artistic work.

Faculty Support:

Faculty should answer the following questions:

• Please list three learning outcomes you aim for this student to take away from the PEAK Trail BlazerFellowship, and how you will support the student to reach those outcomes.
• Please comment on the student’s preparation to undertake the project outlined here
• Please comment on the quality, originality, and worthiness of the proposed research
• PEAK Trail Blazer Fellows are pursuing ambitious, independent projects of their own design. Usually, this is the first time they will have this kind of agency over their intellectual work. Please share your plans for mentoring the student over the course of the project, specifically how frequently you anticipate interacting with the student and how you plan to provide feedback on the project’s progress and its results.
• I confirm that I will serve as the official PI (Principal Investigator) for the purposes of IRB or IACUC approval if it is required. As such, I am responsible to ensure that all research is conducted in accordance with federal regulations and university guidelines, including obtaining approvals.

Additional letter of support: Students should solicit one letter of recommendation from a faculty member or former supervisor other than their PI attesting to their capacity to conduct independent research and confirming the quality of the research project proposed here.

Decisions will be announced before the end of the spring term.