CUREs

Catherine Nichols, Mo We Fri 11:30AM - 12:20PM

Museum and Material Culture Research invites students to learn and practice a variety of anthropological research methods with objects and archives in the May Weber Ethnographic Study Collection, located in Mundelein Center.

Each student contributes to the Collection’s ongoing curation by producing an in-depth research report for an object, which is added to the Collection’s permanent documentation files. Students are encouraged to disseminate their research through eCommons and the Undergraduate Research Symposium.

This is an Engaged Learning (Undergraduate Research) and Writing Intensive course.

Josefrayn Sanchez-Perry, Mo We Fr 12:35PM - 1:25PM

Welcome to Indigenous Science and Religion in Mexico! This course will introduce you to the Indigenous history of science, religion, and materia medica (medicinal properties of plants, animals, and materials) in Mexico.

The course schedule is chronological, beginning at 300 BCE and ending in the present-day, with emphasis on three main themes: ancestral ceremonies, scientific knowledge, and medical developments. From important food staples like maize, tomatoes, and chilli to the manipulation of rubber, special dyes, and hydraulic engineering, as well as the medicinal documentation of animals, plants, and materials, Indigenous communities of Mexico have advanced their societies to impressive standards.

In addition to instructional materials, you will also engage with original historical texts and material culture from Mexico, including visits to the Rare Books Collection and the May Weber Collection, and the Art Institute of Chicago and Newberry Library in the downtown Chicago area. This course fulfills your Engaged Learning requirement.

This course is a combined section with THEO 353 01E - Religious Traditions and cross-listed with HIST 300E 01E - Topics in World History

Jessica Eisenberg, Mo 11:30AM - 2:15PM

In Spring 2027, this engaged learning (undergraduate research) laboratory course will focus on the E. coli enzyme ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase. Students will compare the wild-type enzyme to a mutated version as a means to study enzyme structure and function using a variety of biochemical techniques. Students will begin the process by engineering a point mutation in the gene and then move on to protein expression and purification. Characterization of the enzyme's structure and function will be done through analysis of thermal shift and enzyme kinetic assays.

To wrap up the course, students will present their findings with an oral presentation and a written research paper.

Bree Showalter-Sines, Mo We 12:35PM - 3:20PM

The lecture portion of this class aims to develop a comprehensive understanding of plant biology in ecological and human contexts. Students will explore how plants respond and adapt to environmental stresses, interact with animals, and influence human societies through ethnobotany.

The course also introduces plant biomes, community dynamics, succession, and the impacts of global climate change on plant communities and their distributions. Through hands-on field experiences, students will observe and document plant diversity and phenological patterns, gain exposure to ecological restoration and plant-focused careers, and build skills in locating, reading, and discussing primary scientific literature. 

In the lab portion of this course, students will design and conduct original research that examines the effect of climate on plant phenological events (e.g., flowering) using herbarium specimen data. Students will search for and download herbarium specimen data from the consortium of online databases. Students will use Excel and R code (through RStudio) to visualize, clean, and analyze the data. Student will present their research as a scientific poster and get to practice their skills in science communication to a general audience. 

Hui Ye, Mo We 12:35PM - 3:20PM

How does the nervous system organize and function in order to control animal behaviors such as locomotion, escaping and feeding? What are the ionic bases that control the single neuron’s excitability? How can one control neural activity by electric and magnetic stimulation? As a senior level neuroscience lab class, BIOL 373 provides a unique training opportunity to students to learn various techniques in the field of cellular neurobiology. Students will gain hands-on experience in biomedical instrumentation, signal processing, micro dissection of nervous system, extracellular and intracellular recording techniques from nerves, axons, and single neurons. Students will also be trained to simulate neural activity using the computational neuroscience platforms such as Neurons in Actions (NIA) and NEURON.

To appreciate the complexity of neural control of animal behavior, the model system Aplysia californica will be used for the study. Scientific publications related to the class will be introduced in the class. In the 2^nd half of the semester, students will work in the lab to acquire data, and generate final research papers. Research projects will be in the field of neural modulation using electromagnetic stimulation. More information can be found here: https://www.luc.edu/biology/aboutus/facultyresearch/huiye/”

James Lodolce, Mo We 1:40PM - 4:25PM

This course is an intensive laboratory course in the basic principles and techniques of molecular biology, including bacterial cloning, polymerase chain reaction, restriction mapping, agarose gel electrophoresis, and DNA sequencing. 

The goal of this intensive laboratory course is to introduce you to the basic principles and techniques of molecular biology. During the first half of the semester, you will be introduced to and learn the basic techniques of molecular biology including bacterial cloning, polymerase chain reaction, restriction mapping, agarose gel electrophoresis, and DNA sequencing. In the second half of the course, you will apply these techniques to your own independent cloning projects. This is an Engaged Learning course, approved for the Undergraduate Research category, and thus satisfies Loyola’s Engaged Learning requirement. This course is also Writing Intensive; thus, we will be spending considerable time learning formal science writing skills. 

Megan Whitney, Tu Th 10:00AM - 11:15AM

This course is an introduction to research into how life has evolved in deep time. As a part of this course, students will partake in independent research in a Late Cretaceous (66 million years ago) ecosystem to document the final days of non-avian dinosaurs and the rise of mammals. Using real fossils students will gain skills in anatomical identification, ecosystem statistics, microscopy, and geology. Students will present their research during a final poster presentation symposium and practice their skills in science communication to a general audience.

Lab section:  BIOL 395L 03E, Special Topics Lab (Paleobiology), Th 11:30AM - 2:15PM

Helena Palka-Hamblin, Mo We 9:20AM - 10:35AM

The Cancer Cell Culture CURE is designed to give students hands-on experience with the process of conducting biological research while developing practical skills in cell culture. Students will learn how to grow and maintain cancer cell lines in both 2D and 3D culture systems and apply these techniques to their own research projects.

Working in pairs, students will develop a testable research hypothesis and design experiments to address their questions. Throughout the semester, students will read and critically evaluate primary research articles, develop an experimental plan, and write a grant-style research proposal. Once their projects are approved, students will carry out their experiments, collect and analyze their data, and use their findings to refine their research questions and experimental approaches.

Students will also participate in regular lab meetings where they present their progress, discuss experimental designs and new data, and work together to troubleshoot challenges. This collaborative approach gives students experience with the day-to-day process of doing research, including problem-solving and unexpected results that are an important part of scientific research.

At the end of the semester, students will prepare and present a scientific poster highlighting their research question, experimental approach, results, conclusions, and future directions. By the end of the course, students will have gained experience with both the technical and intellectual aspects of biological research, from developing a research question to communicating their findings.

Students need to have completed BIOL251 (Cell Biology) and BIOL252 (Cell Biology Laboratory) to register for this class.

Hariklia Dimitropoulos, Mo Fr 11:30AM - 2:15PM

<p">This course is a laboratory-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) that introduces students to contemporary topics in epigenetic inheritance through lectures and analysis of primary literature on the epigenetics of human aging and cancer. Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene activity or gene expression that occur without changes in the primary DNA sequence. Most coursework will center on conducting original research using cultured human cells as a model system.

This CURE course provides students with the opportunity to investigate questions with unknown answers using authentic research methodologies. Students will formulate or be assigned research objectives, design experiments, utilize molecular tools, and investigate mechanisms relevant to epigenetic gene regulation. Research projects will emphasize identifying epigenetic signatures, such as DNA methylation and histone modifications, across various cell types. Representative experimental methods include cell culture, DNA and RNA extraction, methylation-specific PCR, bisulfite sequencing, chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP), and other relevant epigenetic and genetic assays.

This course fulfills the University Engaged Learning requirement and meets the criteria for undergraduate research courses. Reflection assignments are incorporated throughout the course, and a final synthesis project will disseminate the original research conducted during the semester. The culminating end-of-semester project will take the form of a poster session where students will present their findings, open to the entire biology department.

Course Prerequisite: BIOL 282 must have been completed with a passing grade.

Megan Whitney, Th 11:30AM - 2:15PM

This course is an introduction to research into how life has evolved in deep time. As a part of this course, students will partake in independent research in a Late Cretaceous (66 million years ago) ecosystem to document the final days of non-avian dinosaurs and the rise of mammals. Using real fossils students will gain skills in anatomical identification, ecosystem statistics, microscopy, and geology. Students will present their research during a final poster presentation symposium and practice their skills in science communication to a general audience.

Lecture section:  BIOL 395 03E, Special Topics in Biology (Paleobiology), Tu Th 10:00AM - 11:15AM

Peter Dordal, Mo We Fr 2:45PM - 3:35PM

Course Description Coming Soon!

Amy Wilkinson, Fr 1:00PM - 2:30PM

Amongst the more exciting aspects of contemporary dancemaking is that it is often collaborative, site-specific, and interdisciplinary. This is the case with the DANC 398 Light and Gold project. For this course, faculty will assemble a dance ensemble that will create and perform an original work of choreography. Through weekly rehearsals, students will learn and develop choreographic tasks that provide the foundation for movement vocabulary within the larger piece.

Rather than being solely directed by the faculty mentor, students involved in the Light and Gold project will have a great deal of ownership of the work as movement material will also be mined from individual improvisation and writing exercises during the rehearsal process.

A key component of the project includes the collaboration with professional dance company Mandala Dance, a well-established contemporary company in Rome. Loyola Dance Theatre students will not only be immersed in the professional world of dance but will also participate fully as co-creators of dance repertory involving both companies. Both groups will share the stage at a professional performance venue in Rome, Italy. This is an opportunity nearly unheard of in collegiate dance programs. Movement will reflect elements of craft including space, time, and energetic efforts performed individually and in partner-work. The hope is that the collaborative and deeply personal nature of Light and Gold reveals new information about the ways in which bodies are socio-culturally inscribed, as well as how physical movement abstracts and makes manifest personal narratives.

Olivia Wolf, We 4:15PM - 6:45PM

Course description coming soon!

TBA, Tu Th 2:00PM - 5:00PM

Every Spring, five Loyola students have the chance to be a part of a research seminar at the Newberry Library, located near the Water Tower Campus. Over the course of their semester at the library, students attend seminar meetings with students from DePaul, Roosevelt, and UIC. The seminar allows students to combine an intensive classroom experience with independent research carried out in the Newberry Library, one of the country's richest archives of primary source materials on history and culture.

The seminar is open to qualified students in all disciplines, counts as both Writing Intensive and Engaged Learning, and culminates in a major research paper and presentation.

Carmen Rovi, Tu Th 4:15PM - 5:30PM

The Research Seminar in Mathematics (Math 298) is a seminar-style course that introduces students to the process of mathematical research through hands-on projects and close mentorship from faculty. Students will explore how to formulate questions, develop methods, and communicate results in mathematics and its applications.

Each student will work on an individual or team-based research project, either launching a new idea or continuing an existing project. They will also gain experience in writing, presenting, and sharing their work with peers and faculty. Projects will be presented in class and potentially outside of class to fulfill the engaged learning requirements.

The Advanced Research Seminar in Mathematics (Math 390) is a seminar-style course that provides students with the opportunity to develop their research and presentation skills, covering both familiar topics from the curriculum and more unconventional topics not typically included in the undergraduate curriculum.

Students will engage in research projects and will participate in the research culture of the department by attending research seminars and colloquia. They will have opportunities to present their research findings both in class and to audiences outside of class to fulfill the engaged learning requirements.

Physics majors enrolled in PHYS 126F work in small groups on a semester-long research project under the supervision of a faculty member. Each group proposes a research project, studies the underlying physics, designs and builds an experimental apparatus or computational framework, collects and analyzes data, then presents their results at an end-of-semester research symposium. This hands-on experience teaches students how to plan, collaborate on, and communicate scientific research – essential skills that can't be taught in the classroom. 

Each section of PHYS 126F is led by a faculty member who guides their group through the process of identifying and planning a project, and no two sections are alike. Students might develop numerical simulations of galactic dark matter halos, model and test "Chladni patterns" formed by sand on a vibrating plate, construct an acoustic levitation device, or build a cosmic ray detector. These projects may turn into long-term collaborations and have even led to peer-reviewed publications.

Sections and faculty:

Jon Bougie, Tu 1:00pm - 2:55pm

This course will explore various aspects of experimental research in physics, including project development, experimental techniques, lab documentation, manuscript writing, and scientific communication.

Students will work in small groups to plan and carry out a semester-long research project, culminating in a final paper and presentation. Smaller-scale assignments and labs will supplement this project, giving students experience in advanced experimental methods, research practices, and scientific writing.

Eric Hansen, Tu Th 2:30PM - 3:45PM

This is a special topics course; for Spring 2027, the topic is "Representation Research Lab"

This course engages students in original research about the biographical characteristics of elected officials. Students will confront questions about descriptive representation, which is the representation of a group in political institutions by individuals who identify as members of the group. They will also grapple with questions about measurement--how we quantify abstract concepts like identity for social science research.

Students will be required to collect, validate, and analyze publicly available data about elected officials. Data collected as part of this course will be disseminated to researchers studying the biographical characteristics of state legislators in the U.S. Prior completion of PLSC 216: Political Numbers is helpful but not required.

David Doherty, Tu Th 11:30AM - 12:45PM

Each January, Professors David Doherty (Political Science) and Dana Garbarski (Sociology) field a survey of Cook County residents to see how people in the area feel about matters including crime and safety, local politics, municipal services, schools, local politics, and more. In Spring 2027, students will have an opportunity to participate in an engaged learning course, taught by Professor Doherty, focused on analyzing data from this survey and reporting findings. Participants will be the first people on earth to work with the new data and gain insights into how the local community feels about the issues of the day.

Students will prepare public-facing reports and presentations to share findings with the public, as well as produce rigorous analyses that will improve our understanding of the forces that shape people’s attitudes about local issues. Success completing Political Numbers (PLSC 216) or, in special cases, a comparable social science course in quantitative methods is a pre-requisite. Instructor permission will be required to register. Learn more about the CCCS and explore data from past years here: www.cccs.sites.luc.edu.

Elizabeth Wakefield, Mo We Fr 8:15AM - 9:05AM

The PSYC 369/370 course sequence gives majors in Psychology the opportunity to complete an honors thesis project with a faculty mentor in the department. This fulfills the Capstone requirement for the Psychology Major, and is a great option for students who have been working in a research lab during their undergraduate career at Loyola and are looking to gain more experience designing, conducting and writing about a study of their own.

For more information about eligibility and the course, please reach out to Dr. Wakefield (ewakefield1@luc.edu).

Mena Whalen, Mo We Fri 2:45PM - 3:35PM

What does a statistician or data scientist actually do all day? In STAT 370, you’ll find out by doing it. This isn’t a lecture course. There are no exams, no homework sets, and no textbook. Instead, you’ll join a small team of 2–3 students and spend the semester working with a real client, a Loyola faculty member, researcher, administrator, or outside partner, on an original project.

Past projects have ranged from air quality sensors to medical imaging to malaria research. You’ll build the nontechnical skills of communication, team work, self investigation that employers look for: asking the right questions, translating a messy real-world problem into an analysis plan, explaining results to people who aren’t statisticians, and thinking on your feet with live data.

Hans Svebakken, Mo We Fri 12:35PM - 1:25PM

Science denial threatens the common good by undermining public confidence in the ability of science to comprehend our world and create effective solutions for urgent social problems. This course explores the threat of science denial through a series of three questions. First, what is science denial? Second, what motivates science denial? Third, what mitigates science denial?

Insofar as some science denial stems from the presumption of an inevitable conflict between faith and science, this course considers the merits of a model presuming their peaceful co-existence. Because the scientific consensus on human evolution directly involves a range of important theological questions, this scientific topic forms the major case study of the course, although a range of other topics fall within the scope of the course.

Students will explore a relevant research question of their choice and share their results with the class at the end of the semester.

Hans Svebakken, Mo We Fri 10:25AM - 11:15AM

Science denial threatens the common good by undermining public confidence in the ability of science to comprehend our world and create effective solutions for urgent social problems. This course explores the threat of science denial through a series of three questions. First, what is science denial? Second, what motivates science denial? Third, what mitigates science denial?

Insofar as some science denial stems from the presumption of an inevitable conflict between faith and science, this course considers the merits of a model presuming their peaceful co-existence. Because the scientific consensus on human evolution directly involves a range of important theological questions, this scientific topic forms the major case study of the course, although a range of other topics fall within the scope of the course.

Students will explore a relevant research question of their choice and share their results with the class at the end of the semester.

Yarina Liston-Birnbaum, Mo 4:15PM - 6:45PM

Religions of Asia aims to help students become more conscious of regional religious differences in Asia.  We are primarily investigating religions of two regions - South Asia (India) and East Asia (China/Japan).   

Once the religions of, let's say, India are put in conversation with each other then it becomes more apparent to students what the major philosophical and social concerns are.  They build a deeper understanding from listening to the religions responding to and arguing with each other over various concerns like morality, deity, human action, etc. 

Students are required to do a research project on an Asian religion site in the Chicagoland area, which they choose and they will use this background information in their onsite visits as well as the final project.

Yarina Liston-Birnbaum, We 4:15PM - 6:45PM

Religions of Asia aims to help students become more conscious of regional religious differences in Asia.  We are primarily investigating religions of two regions - South Asia (India) and East Asia (China/Japan).   

Once the religions of, let's say, India are put in conversation with each other then it becomes more apparent to students what the major philosophical and social concerns are.  They build a deeper understanding from listening to the religions responding to and arguing with each other over various concerns like morality, deity, human action, etc. 

Students are required to do a research project on an Asian religion site in the Chicagoland area, which they choose and they will use this background information in their onsite visits as well as the final project.

Josefrayn Sanchez-Perry, Mo We Fr 12:35PM - 1:25PM

Welcome to Indigenous Science and Religion in Mexico! This course will introduce you to the Indigenous history of science, religion, and materia medica (medicinal properties of plants, animals, and materials) in Mexico.

The course schedule is chronological, beginning at 300 BCE and ending in the present-day, with emphasis on three main themes: ancestral ceremonies, scientific knowledge, and medical developments. From important food staples like maize, tomatoes, and chilli to the manipulation of rubber, special dyes, and hydraulic engineering, as well as the medicinal documentation of animals, plants, and materials, Indigenous communities of Mexico have advanced their societies to impressive standards.

In addition to instructional materials, you will also engage with original historical texts and material culture from Mexico, including visits to the Rare Books Collection and the May Weber Collection, and the Art Institute of Chicago and Newberry Library in the downtown Chicago area. This course fulfills your Engaged Learning requirement.

This course is a combined section with ANTH 361 01E - Issues Cultural Anthropology and cross-listed with HIST 300E 01E - Topics in World History

Emily Cain, Tu Th 11:30AM - 12:45PM

Reading Augustine: Love, Loss, and the Search for God

What do love and loss teach us about the search for God? In this course, we will turn to Augustine to ask how grief and desire shape his account of humans in relationship to God, to one another, and to themselves. As we read, we will consider which of Augustine’s questions we share, which of his answers we find convincing, and where our own answers might differ from his.

The shared course readings and topics will serve as the foundation for students’ own independent research projects on a related question of their choosing. By the end of the course, students will present their research, showing how these ancient theological questions continue to shape how we think about God, the self, and the world today.

Dance (DANC)

Fine Art (FNAR)

Music (MUSC)

Theatre (THTR)