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Sample 2-wk research course schedule. Different types of course activities are color coded. The majority of time is spent conducting research in small teams, with course-wide All Hands meetings that focus on either learning about cellular engineering or career development. Check-in times are integral for Peer Mentors, Team Leaders, and Course Directors to share experiences, provide support, and troubleshoot issues that arise in teams.

Aggregated participation in undergraduate research. The number of undergraduate students (y axis) who participated in total semesters of research (x axis). Students who participated in multiple semesters are represented in each bar they participated in (i.e., a student who participated in 3 semesters is counted in bars 1–3). Data shown represent only semesters after the completion of the training semester. Data are shown for the Brown Experiential Learning (BEL) program from 2016 to 2023 (a) and institutional from 2018 to 2023 (b). Institutional enrollment data include BEL program enrollment.

Proportion of participants by academic class per semester. The data shown are the proportion of students who were in each academic class, as defined by the university per semester. The data do not include the initial training semester. Note that many of these students were first- and second-year students at Virginia Tech, who were academic sophomores and juniors by virtue of transfer credits. The program has had an average of 15 undergraduate students since the fall of 2017 and has maintained many more who have gone through the training.

Participant response to how the Brown Experiential Learning program affected learning and professional outcomes. Participant response (n = 27) was normalized to 100% for each metric. The questions offered options for “somewhat negatively affected” and “negatively affected,” but none were selected by any of the participants surveyed for any metric.

Research-integrating teaching platform based on IDPs. (a) IDPs can remain disordered in their complexes, which expands the interaction potential and broadens the palette of molecular communication mechanisms, challenging the structure function paradigm linking function to form. (b) Posters inviting the students to join the research-integrating course. (c) Workflow of the research-integrating teaching laboratory. An invitation from two fictive famous scientists, selecting the students to participate and setting the scene, initiates the course. The students then select an unstudied IDP from the list, which they express and purify and for which they formulate a testable hypothesis. With the use of advanced biophysics to test the hypothesis, students generate and analyze data and present the results in a scientific poster. (d) Students presenting their discoveries and research in the form of a scientific poster to an interested crowd of students, PhD students, post docs, mentors, and a poster committee. (e) Course evaluation with anonymous reporting and its outcome is based on >90% responses.