Welcome to Meeting of the Minds - Carnegie Mellon University’s Undergraduate Research Symposium! 

Undergraduate research is a key aspect of the Carnegie Mellon experience. It gives students the ability to become active participants in intellectual and creative communities, explore topics in greater depth, and grow as scholars and leaders. Undergraduate researchers make real contributions to faculty-led projects, helping to advance knowledge in crucial areas such as climate change, biomedicine, mathematics, arts and culture, and cutting-edge technologies. 

Beginning in 1995, Meeting of the Minds has served as the premier campus-wide forum to showcase the work of our undergraduate researchers and their mentors. We are proud to continue this highly respected Carnegie Mellon tradition. This year’s event will allow the Carnegie Mellon community to experience firsthand the astounding intellectual and creative accomplishments of our undergraduates, with the added bonus of having students share their work on our virtual platform to allow Meeting of the Minds to reach beyond our immediate campus community. We are excited that student presentations can also be shared with proud loved ones, alumni, and our donors whose generosity helps students to realize their goals in research. 

We want to thank the members of the CMU community who have made this day possible: our dedicated faculty, who understand the value of the high-impact practice of undergraduate research and who provide frontline support to foster our students’ growth; our OURSD Committee, who review student research proposals with great care and diligence; our Trustees, who ensure our university’s health and our ability to hold these events; and President Farnam Jahanian, Provost Jim Garrett, and Vice Provost for Education Amy Burkert, who are unwavering in their commitment to - and material support of - undergraduate research.  

Finally, congratulations to our students for their extraordinary contributions, their intellectual fearlessness, and their belief in the possibilities of a better world achieved through a commitment to knowledge. The work they are presenting at this year’s Meeting of the Minds reminds us all why we are here, and why there is so much to be proud of at Carnegie Mellon.  

Getting the most out of Meeting of the Minds:

This year, our symposium will take place in person on campus, but we welcome you here to our online platform to find the times and locations of the presentations, as well as to view a sample of each presentation online. 

If you are on campus on May 1st, please stop by the Cohon University Center between 10:00 am and 4:00 pm to see our student presentations. There will also be satellite locations for SCS students in the Gates-Hillman Building and for BXA students in the Hall of Arts.

How to Locate In-Person Presentations:

Along the top menu, you will see a ‘Presentations’ link. Here you can search for a presenter’s name, faculty name, or project title. This will take you to the student’s presentation, where you can click on the individual page to view the time and location of the in-person presentation. Projects can be filtered using the menus on the left if you are looking for a specific group or research type. The page will also show the abstract and a sample poster or presentation of the student’s work.

We encourage viewers to browse multiple student presentations to get a sense of the breadth and scope of undergraduate research and creative scholarship taking place at Carnegie Mellon. 

Thank you for attending and for taking part in Meeting of the Minds.  

Richelle Bernazzoli, Alex Johnson, Jen Weidenhof, and Paige Zalman