MSRP Mission
The MIT Summer Research Program (MSRP) seeks to promote the value of graduate education; to improve the research enterprise through increased diversity; and to prepare and recruit the best and brightest for graduate education at MIT.
MSRP began in 1986 as an institutional effort to address the issue of underrepresentation of African Americans, Mexican Americans, Native Americans, and Puerto Ricans in engineering and science in the United States. Today, this program’s goal is to increase the number of underrepresented minorities and underserved (e.g. low socio-economic background, first generation) students in the research enterprise.
MSRP seeks to identify talented sophomores, juniors, and non-graduating seniors who might benefit from spending a summer on MIT’s campus, conducting research under the guidance of MIT faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, and advanced graduate students.
Students who participate in this program will be better prepared and motivated to pursue advanced degrees, thereby helping to sustain a rich talent pool in critical areas of research and innovation.
Participant Benefits
- Supervision by an MIT faculty member and postdoctoral fellow or advanced graduate student
- Individual counseling on academic careers
- Constructive feedback on the need for further undergraduate courses and acquisition of additional laboratory skills
- Opportunity to possibly co-author a scientific paper with the faculty mentor
- Exposure to state of the art research laboratories in MIT departments and interdisciplinary centers
- A weekly stipend
- Round trip travel expenses
- University housing and food subsidy (students are responsible for food expenses beyond the subsidy amount)
- Access to campus facilities (library, athletic, and health facilities)
Program Features
- Weekly research presentation by MIT faculty
- Weekly seminars on issues directly related to the academic, personal, and professional growth of interns
- Community service day
- Social outings (barbecues, boat cruise, visits to Boston area)
- Preparation of an abstract, research paper, and graduate school statement of purpose
- Poster presentation at the end of the program
Participating Departments
- Aeronautics and Astronautics
- Architecture
- Biological Engineering
- Center for Real Estate
- Chemical Engineering
- Chemistry
- Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Comparative Media Studies
- Computational and Systems Biology
- Computational Science and Engineering
- Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
- Economics
- Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
- Health Sciences and Technology (Joint Harvard-MIT Program)
- History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology, and Society
- Institute for Data, Systems, and Society
- Linguistics
- Materials Science and Engineering
- Mathematics
- Mechanical Engineering
- Media Arts and Sciences
- MIT Sloan PhD Program
- Nuclear Science and Engineering
- Operations Research Center
- Philosophy
- Physics
- Political Science
- Transportation
- Urban Studies and Planning
If your interested department is not listed above, we encourage you to explore these other summer opportunities.
