Research Assistantships

Undergraduate Applicants

SISRM’s RA program offers UChicago undergraduates the opportunity to reinforce and extend their new research skills through paid positions working on faculty research projects. RAs are matched with faculty across the social sciences based on academic goals and interests as well as planned summer coursework. RA positions extend from June through August. The RA stipend is $5,000 for roughly 160 hours of work. Some RA positions may be eligible for academic year extensions.

Who is eligible?

  • Rising second-, third-, and fourth-year UChicago students

  • Fourth-year UChicago students who will graduate and pursue a UChicago MA program in the next academic year

  • Chicago State University undergraduates

  • Insper undergraduates

Timeline

  • Applications for the summer program open in late December and close at 11:59PM, February 26, 2024

  • Students will be notified of their application status by March 22, 2024

  • Awards must be accepted or declined by April 12, 2024

Faculty Who Wish to Host an RA

UChicago faculty, instructors, and research groups who wish to support an RA through SISRM may do so by filling out a brief application that states project needs.

Timeline

  • Applications open January 3, 2024

  • Applications are due Friday, March 8, 2024

  • Faculty will be notified of their RA matches in mid-April.

Student ApplicationFaculty Application
"It’s been thrilling to accompany the Summer Institute students on a path that starts with the initial first meetings where everything we’re talking about still seems confusing because they’re still new to spatial ways of thinking, methods and computational tools, where everyone makes lots of mistakes and feels awkward and uncertain about the programming, the data, the questions and the methods. As they’re progressing with Marynia’s class and their project, there’s suddenly more traction after digging in and at the end of the summer, they’ve started to acquire a new spatial perspective on research, learned new spatial methods and have made the tools their own in a way that they’re now flying through them confidently. It’s been a beautiful transition to watch. Several of the students got hooked and we’ll be continuing to work with them on funded spatial research projects that will provide them with opportunities to publish a paper, attend a research conference and collaborate with a policy institution. They are now plugging into the larger spatial infrastructure at the Center for Spatial Data Science with our spatial study group, spatial workshops, and a spatial interdisciplinary community. All this is preparing them to be ready for an increasing number of opportunities that are opening up in the computational social sciences."
Julia Koschinsky, Executive Director, Center for Spatial Data Science