As an Uplift Host Lab, you'll work with a student from October 9, 2024鈥揗ay 2, 2025. STEM Routes covers the entirety of the Uplift Student stipend ($3000), however, we strongly encourage fund matching ($1500) from your lab or the department, as this enables us to serve more students at the university. The purpose of this application is to help us match your lab with a student and ensure that students will be in a supportive, productive training environment during their Uplift experience.

Completion of this form does not guarantee that you'll be assigned an Uplift student this academic year. A match is contingent upon two factors: (1) if we accept a student who is interested in your lab and (2) if your application demonstrates that your lab is a supportive, safe environment for an Uplift student.

Program Expectations

The Uplift program serves CU students who are first-generation, low-income, underrepresented, or non-traditional. STEM Routes has a responsibility to ensure the safety of our participating students when they join a lab, especially if they aren't well-represented in the space. Remember that Uplift specifically serves students with minimal or no research experience, so we do not have any experience requirements in lab skills or coursework. Make sure you don't list any pre-requisites in your project description (such as coding experience, completed coursework, or GPA minima).

By submitting a project application, you agree to the following expectations and requirements:

  • Labs may not discriminate against a student based on their background, year, research experience, or department/major, except in the case where departmental or lab funding is limited to US citizens or students within the same department as the host lab.
  • Each student must be assigned a dedicated lab mentor to supervise their training and lab progress. The lab mentor may be a graduate student, experienced undergraduate student, staff scientist, lab manager, post-doctoral student, or the professor themselves.
  • The lab mentor must attend 2 mentorship training sessions at the start of the program and communicate monthly with STEM Routes to ensure the Uplift student is fulfilling program requirements.
  • The lab mentor must ensure that the Uplift student has sufficient lab training during the 8-week training period (Oct 9鈥揇ec 14, 2024), between 3鈥�6 hours per week.
  • The lab mentor provides guidance to the student as they decide their research directions for the 16-week research period (Spring semester) and ensures that the student is working 5鈥�10 hours per week.

If you have any questions about the application or would like to host more than one student, please email us at STEM_Routes@colorado.edu

If your lab does not have a research website, please list N/A
The Lab Mentor is the individual primarily supervising and training the Uplift Student. The Lab Mentor is required to attend 2 training sessions through STEM Routes if this is their first time working with us.
In a few sentences, please describe your group's research. Focus specifically on the projects your Uplift Student may work on.
What skills will your Uplift Student learn during their shadowing period in the Fall semester? What kinds of tasks are they expected to learn how to execute? Will students conduct wet lab research, computational work, or field work?
In a few sentences, why would your lab like to participate in the Uplift program? How do you embody the Uplift philosophy of equitable and accessible research?
We encourage participating labs or their departments to contribute funding to participating students. We pay each student $3000 in stipends over the course of the academic year. Is your lab and/or department willing to contribute to funding your student?
Can undocumented, DACA, and international students apply for your project?
Will the student work with animal models?
Do you have any questions for the Uplift Board at this time?