Undergraduate Research Assistant Program
The McCombs Undergraduate Research Assistant Program provides opportunities for undergraduate business students to assist faculty research objectives. Funding for these assistantships come from the Research Excellence Fund.
URA-L

Lab URAs

Research positions in the Behavioral Lab will allow you to grow your management skills, as you work with other URAs and the lab coordinator to effectively facilitate experiments for doctoral students and McCombs faculty members wishing to execute lab experiments. Lab URAs are responsible for setting up the lab to run studies, checking in participants for studies, and overseeing participants as they execute those studies. For these studies, Lab URAs may attend a training session with the experimenter to best understand how to execute the study. During these training sessions, URAs are often asked to pitch suggestions, or provide their own input on how to best execute the study design. Lab URAs are also recruited by the lab coordinator to assist with subject recruitment, which may include creating and distributing study advertisements.

Outside of these main responsibilities, Lab URAs may be recruited to execute Supplemental Data Assistance (SDA) tasks in addition to their weekly shifts in the lab.

As noted above, Ph.D. students or McCombs faculty members who need assistance with a particular aspect of their research will recruit a URA-L to execute these short–term projects, that URAs can complete alongside their hours dedicated to in-lab shifts. SDA tasks will not exceed 5 hours of work per week. These tasks are unique from one another and can be as simple as downloading articles into a folder, or more research heavy, such as content analysis and data organization. URAs will volunteer for those that match their skill capabilities and interests.

Apply for a Lab URA (URA-L) position
Jackie Pillow, 2023 - 2024 URA-L
Jackie Pillow, 2023 - 2024 URA-L
"The lab has taught me how to maintain strong leadership skills, given me the opportunity to grow my executive presence through presenting to both faculty and donors, and given me experience in qualitative data processing and analysis. It is so exciting to see the things we work on drive impactful business research. We hire for the lab in both the Fall and Spring and are always looking for intellectually curious students that love spending time with people and want to gain exposure to the difference facets of business research."
Apply to be a Lab URA

URA-F (Faculty URAs)

If you are interested in conducting research on specific topics, becoming a research assistant for a specific faculty member within McCombs may be a good fit. To get involved, you should reach out to faculty whose expertise align with your interests (in advance of the semester you wish to get involved). Your best bet for seeking these opportunities is directly contacting faculty whose research interests you, however, below is a link to a form where you can submit materials to express your interest in faculty research opportunities (in addition to your personal outreach); filling out this form does not guarantee a position. To learn more about the different types of projects students may work on with faculty, read the below anecdotes from current and former Faculty Undergraduate Research Assistants.


To submit an application for a Faculty URA position (URA-F), fill out this form.

Achinthya Nagarajan, Accounting Major, ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ 2023 - 2024 URA-F
Achinthya Nagarajan, Accounting Major, ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ 2023 - 2024 URA-F
"I helped with the entire data collection process by myself, from scheduling times for experimentation sessions, following up with participants to confirm their attendance, having participants confirm their identity, coordinating with other sessions to ensure there were no mix-ups, conducting the experiments, and finally, paying individuals for their participation. This experience taught me how to be adaptable. In the research world, a vast number of things can go wrong with an experiment, and I had to adapt to shifting circumstances. I think one of the biggest benefits of being a research assistant is that you get a contact point with some of the most brilliant minds on campus in a space outside the classroom. You can talk with them about your future plans and ideas, as well as their work and inspirations."
Apply to be a Faculty URA
Brianna Zhang, MIS Major, ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎2023 - 2024 URA-F
Brianna Zhang, MIS Major, ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎2023 - 2024 URA-F
"Using generative AI, I parsed, summarized, and cited published articles of our very own McCombs faculty members. Using AI tools, I was able to successfully convert faculty research into an easily comprehensible format for students' future use. I mainly worked as a prompt engineer on this project, editing the requests sent to the AI as more and more nuances appeared.

Throughout my time working on this project, I learned that the key to success comes from considering and questioning all areas of impact. In order to create a final prompt that would provide a comprehensive solution, it was essential for our team to take each department’s nuances into consideration. Contributing to this project allowed me to integrate my interest in technology into improving research efforts within McCombs!"

Apply to be a Faculty URA
Suhaib Rashid, MIS Major, ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎2023 - 2024 URA-F
Suhaib Rashid, MIS Major, ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎2023 - 2024 URA-F
"Using LLMs like ChatGPT, I helped extract key findings and summarize large research papers of faculty. My main role was exploring how to design a set of prompts in a way to direct ChatGPT to take these large complex papers and condense it in a way that would be understandable to the average college and even high school student. The prompt engineering skills I gained as a result of this experience were incredibly valuable, as it has become an essential skill when dealing with AI models. Most of the time all the information you need is there — it's how you ask and direct the AI model that will drive the results that you want. Students should keep an open mind and be willing to explore different fields of business and research as a whole. Often students want to stick to their field of study, but I recommend exploring different paths and reaching out to different faculty and Ph.D. students to get a better idea of how large the business research side is."
Apply to be a Faculty URA
Apply to be a URA
Lab URA Application
Faculty URA Application