Spring 2026: A limited number of "spring only" job opportunities will be offered through the Work-Study Research Assistant Program for the spring semester.

Opportunities for the 2026-2027 academic year will be posted from early June through August 2026. Note that all applications must be submitted through the new Student Employment platform - 12Twenty. Only applications from undergraduate students with work-study awards will be considered. Please note that the opportunities denoted with the First Generation image are offered by faculty members who themselves identify as first generation (neither parent completed a four-year degree); first generation students are particularly encouraged to consider these positions and apply to those that align with their skills and interests. Student must apply through the 12Twenty platform by navigating to https://studentjobs.uconn.edu/ and selecting the blue "12Twenty for UConn Students" button.

Campus	Faculty Name	Department	Research Focus/Brief Position Description	Status
Avery Point	Shuwen Tan	Marine Sciences	My research focuses on understanding how ocean stratification influences the dynamics of internal waves on the inner continental shelf. Using observational data from moorings and sensors, we investigate how density-driven layering affects the generation, propagation, and dissipation of internal waves, which play a critical role in coastal transport processes. Our methods combine time-series analysis, statistical techniques, data visualization, and numerical modeling. A student in this position will analyze real-world oceanographic data to study how stratification affects internal wave dynamics at Point Sal, a site known for its energetic internal waves. The work involves processing and visualizing time-series data from oceanographic moorings, applying statistical and signal processing techniques, and potentially contributing to numerical modeling efforts. Students will collaborate with researchers from the University of Washington and the University of Connecticut while developing skills in programming, data analysis, and physical oceanography. The position is primarily computer-based and does not involve field or lab work.	Open
Waterbury	Pablo Kokay Valente	Allied Health Sciences	Our research program focuses on understanding determinants of HIV risk and access to preventive and treatment services related to infectious diseases in the US and Brazil. We focus on behavioral and social factors such as mental health, substance use, and stigma, among others. Our team uses quantitative (e.g., biostatistics) and qualitative methods (e.g., analysis of interviews and focus groups) and engages marginalized populations including sexual and gender minorities, people who use substances, and sex workers. RAs will be involved in different research projects and work with other undergraduate and graduate students. Activities students will be involved in include development of proposals and IRB submissions, recruitment of participants, data collection (assisting in qualitative interviews and programming Qualtrics surveys), and data analysis using quantitative and qualitative software. Previous knowledge of data collection and analysis software such as Qualtrics, Stata, SPSS, as well as familiarity with Brazilian Portuguese would be helpful but not required.	Open
Storrs	Benjamin Chilson-Parks	Earth Sciences	I study the chemical composition of volcanic rocks, which are ultimately sourced from Earth's interior (the crust and the mantle) and offer valuable information about the geologic processes involved in plate tectonics, the creation of continents and ocean basins, and spatial and temporal patterns of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. To measure these compositions, I collect rock samples from the field and conduct laboratory methods, often involving mass spectrometry. I then use various analysis and modeling techniques to make interpretations about this data. The student will analyze datasets of rock compositions that my research lab has collected to better understand the tectonic evolution of the crust and mantle in the western United States and the Andean region of South America. Because the work in the lab and field has already happened, the student will be able to complete their work on a computer using software that is either open source/free or available from UConn’s software website. Much of the tasks involved in this work will involve compiling, organizing, plotting and modeling data in spreadsheets. Additional tasks may involve reading and compiling data from previously published research papers that pertain to the focus of this project.	TBD
Hartford	Meg Paceley	Social Work	The research includes a primary focus on understanding the experiences of transgender and gender expansive youth, their families, and professionals who work with them. Research projects include qualitative interviews with advocates and activists, as well as trans youth and their families. The undergraduate student employee will assist with de-identifying interview transcripts, engage in qualitative analysis, find and review academic literature, and support the drafting of academic manuscripts and presentations. Students will also engage in virtual research team meetings, engage in training, and meet with the professor supervisor regularly. All student employees work virtually and are provided with resources and training they need.	Open
Hartford	Gio Iacono	Social Work	This research adopts a dual focus: 1. LGBTQIA+ Youth Mental Health Intervention Research: Supporting the development, scaling, and evaluation of affirmative mindfulness-based interventions tailored for LGBTQIA+ youth and young adults. Work includes assessing the impact on mental health and social well-being, and understanding barriers to care. 2. Impacts of Gender-Affirming Care (GAC) Legislation: Investigating how recent legislation banning or restricting gender-affirming mental health care affects providers working with transgender, non-binary, and gender diverse (TNG) youth. The study aims to inform support systems for mental health providers, enhance professional practice, and advance trans equity and justice. This position will involve assisting Principal Investigator (PI), Dr. Gio Iacono, with research project coordination, qualitative data analysis (e.g., interview coding), administrative support, dissemination of research findings, and contributing to grant applications to scale interventions and expand the scope of research.	Open
Storrs	Chang Liu	School of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Manufacturing Engineering	FLUids, rEduction, Nonlinearity, and Turbulence (FLUENT) group focuses on reduced-order modeling and analysis of fluid flows using various tools, including control theory, nonlinear dynamical systems, and optimization. The fluids problem arises from various applications, including aerospace engineering, naval and ocean engineering, atmosphere, and physical oceanography. This position will test nonlinear instability analysis of time-varying systems. This position will formulate nonlinear instability frameworks using the Lyapunov method, and implement this analysis numerically using linear matrix inequalities or sum-of-squares programming.	Open
Storrs	Justin Furuness	School of Computing	This research is focused on BGP security. We will be simulating the entire internet at scale, developing better defensive policies, and better attacks. We do this in Python and Rust, you can know either Python or C++ for this job.	Open
Storrs	Davis Chacon-Hurtado	Civil and Environmental Engineering	The National Safety Council's 2022 report stated that road traffic fatalities in the United States exceeded 46,000 in 2021, with pedestrians accounting for 20% of these fatalities. This project investigates patterns of pedestrian and cyclist crashes, disparities in infrastructure access, and underlying systemic and behavioral factors contributing to unsafe conditions. Methods include spatial data analysis, literature synthesis, and crash data evaluation. The research assistant will support project tasks focused on understanding factors affecting safety in active transportation in Connecticut. The student will help with literature reviews, data collection from public sources, and datasets for spatial and statistical analysis. Tasks may include coding data, preparing maps or tables, and summarizing findings to support reports and publications.	Open
Storrs	Alexander Agrios	Civil and Environmental Engineering	There is a need materials that can remove CO2 from the atmosphere or from exhaust streams and chemically reduce them to other substances. We are working with antimony selenide, which can strongly absorb sunlight and use the solar energy to reduce CO2. We want to make films of antimony selenide and use them with electrons provided from microbial reactors fed wastewater. The position is to design a system for depositing antimony selenide films using close-space sublimation (CSS). This is envisioned to be a quartz tube attached to a vacuum pump. A glass substrate and a tray of solid antimony selenide are mounted inside, and outside the tube are halogen lamps used to heat the sample and tray to different temperatures, to cause antimony selenide to sublimate from the tray and deposit on the colder substrate. This is a known and common technique but it does not exist at UConn. The student will research the CSS process, seek information on the apparatus assembly, and design the components and assembly to make a working system. If this proves unworkable, we will pivot toward other deposition methods and characterizations of antimony selenide and its interactions with sunlight and CO2.	TBD
Storrs	John Ivan	Civil and Environmental Engineering	I am looking for students to work on several research projects related to pedestrian safety and predicting vehicle speeds according to varying road conditions. One project involves evaluating the safety and operational effectiveness of converting traffic signals from exclusive pedestrian phasing to concurrent phasing - where pedestrians cross on the green light rather that waiting until all vehicle traffic as a red light for an exclusive phase. Another project involves gathering observed real time vehicle speeds on highways all over the country from archived online sources along with attributes of the highways to identify what characteristics explain vehicle speeds. This project also will use data about drivers who participated in a nationwide naturalistic driving study to learn about driver characteristics and behavior related to driving speed. Students will gather, collect, organize, and format the data for each project. The pedestrian safety project will include traveling to locations all over Connecticut to observe interactions between drivers and pedestrians, along with vehicle counts and other operational parameters at each signalized intersection. The highway speed project will include accessing online portals to download data and then format and organize it for analysis in statistical software by graduate students on the project.	TBD