2,893 Inspirational Passion Project Ideas
Turn inspirations into your passion project.
This collection of project ideas, shared by Polygence mentors, is meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.
- AI/ML
- Animation
- Arts
- Biology
- Biotech
- Business
- Cancer
- Chemistry
- Cognitive
- Computer Science
- Creative Writing
- Dance
- Dentistry
- Economics
- Engineering
- Entomology
- Environmental Science
- Ethics
- Fashion
- Finance
- Game Design
- Healthcare
- History
- Illustration
- Languages
- Linguistics
- Literature
- Math
- Medicine
- Music
- Neuroscience
- Nutrition
- Organizational Leadership
- Philanthropy
- Philosophy
- Photography
- Physics
- Psychiatry
- Psychology
- Public Health
- Quantitative
- Social
- Social Science
- Sports Analytics
- Statistics
- Surgery
Are you a computer?
Does a person's mind relate to their body as a computer's software relates its hardware? Those who answer ``yes'' endorse the Computational Theory of Mind (CTM). CTM commits you to the view that many, if not all, of a person's mental processes (e.g., their thinking and reasoning) are computer softwares executed by their brain. CTM is fascinating because it gives a unifying answer to a wide array of questions from across the history and philosophy of psychology. Nevertheless, there is broad disagreement over whether CTM is a genuine scientific organizing principle or a merely convenient metaphor. We'll start by familiarizing ourselves with the origins and content of CTM. After that, we'll branch out in accord with your interests. Whichever way we go, we'll strive for a deeper philosophical understanding of how our mental processes facilitate our capacity to navigate and alter our environment. Pre-requisites: A curiosity for the relationship between the mind, body, and environment is all that's required. We will start with thoughtful columns, podcasts, or videos authored by science communicators and public philosophers and engage with recent research and historical movements where needed.
Linguistics, Cognitive
Generation Z Political Behaviors
Here, we will develop an academic research article centered on the topic of your choosing. An example could include understanding the political behaviors of younger generations. More specifically, we will focus on what political issues are important to Generation Z. You will learn important related research and transferable skills, such as identifying a problem and solutions to the problem (problem-solving skills), understanding how to comprehend large amounts of information, and designing a plan or model to test a problem. The end goal is to develop an academic research article.
Social, Social Science
How Representation of Mental Health Disorders and Treatment in Media Impacts Public Perception
My background in sociology, social work, and marriage and family therapy creates an opportunity to help students explore topics such as human behavior, societal functioning, popular media and related social consequences, mental health disorders, and mental health treatment. Students will have the opportunity to develop knowledge and skills related to the previously mentioned topics, discover how media presentations impact perceptions of mental disorders and treatment, and learn useful research techniques. Information could be gathered using data from existing or secondary sources in combination with survey or interview style questionnaires. Students could review movies, television, music, popular press, celebrity cases, and social media along with peer reviewed academic articles on this topic to create a literature review. Survey or interview style questionnaires could be used to assess the general public's perception on this research topic. The goal for this project would be to create a scientific research paper on the impacts of how mental health disorders and treatment are represented in popular media sources. The outcomes and research directions are vast with a topic such as this.
Social
Isolating pigments using 3D Printed Microfluidics
In this project, you will use basic 3D printing techniques to build microfluidic devices which can separate the base pigments that make up multi-component dyes. In the course of this project, I expect that you will expand your engineering expertise with hands-on work, as well as learn about 3D modeling, chemical separations, and fluid dynamics. Photo by ZMorph All-in-One 3D Printers on Unsplash.com
Ethics, Statistics, Medicine
History of Hip Hop Dance
This project will be a combination of studying the history of different hip hop dance styles and active hip hop dance instruction. The student will use dance as a vector for learning more about cultural expression. After delving into the meaning behind different hip hop practices, the student will create a dance routine that combines many styles, and in turn celebrates many cultures.
Dance, Ethics
Local Asthma Care
This project will focus on identifying an area for improvement in local asthma care. I will help the student understand frequent barriers faced by patients seeking medical care and we will work together to brainstorm projects creating solutions to one of these barriers.
Biology, Ethics, Public Health, Medicine
Do you decide with your brain, or does your brain decide for you?
In this project, you will write a philosophy essay on how our brains either determine, relate to, support, or aren't involved with our thinking. This paper will introduce you to some of the philosophical literature on the philosophy of neuroscience, action, and thought. More importantly, you'll learn how to construct, explicate, and defend an argument. This project will sharpen your thinking and writing skills so you can communicate your ideas clearly and persuasively.
Ethics
A Literature Review on Consumer-Mediated Nutrient Cycling
Animals are often ignored when learning about the cycling of nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen, despite the fact that they play an important role in these cycles. In recent years, scientists have spent more time researching the role of animals as they release nutrients through excretion and egesta, as well as during decomposition. In many cases, these are significant contributions of nutrients to the ecosystem. This review article would contribute to the field by synthesizing current knowledge and summarizing results from investigations into the impact of consumer-mediated nutrient cycling within a particular ecosystem; the project would also identify gaps in the literature and recommend future research priorities.
Ethics, Environmental Science
How to Write an Argument.
Throughout our lives, we encounter arguments. They are designed to provide reasons for us to come to conclusions about the world, and are necessary to convince anyone of anything. For that reason, they are integral to professional and academic success. However, arguments are often difficult to articulate, can be complex and therefore difficult to understand. The goal of this project is to make you better at making arguments in your papers. We'll discuss the logical structure of arguments, common fallacies, examples of strong arguments, and examples of bad arguments. We will finish the project by writing a paper on a topic of your choice that implements the qualities of good argumentation that we have learned.
Philosophy, Social
How Algorithmic Responsibility can Promote Racial Justice
This project would advocate for studying Algorithmic Responsibility, specifically regarding Artificial Intelligence like ChatGPT, through the lens of racial social justice to improve access to technology and decrease the chance that artificial intelligence might disparately impact Black Americans.
AI/ML
Are Your Houseplants Happy?
A review or research paper (or another presentation format) examining growing conditions that common houseplants require. Would include focal points such as grouping plants together to create humid conditions and details on common pathogen infections, like root-rot.
Ethics
Biothics in the COVID-19 Era
The student will use traditional ethics principles to examine recent bioethical issues in the time of the current COVID-19 pandemic. The student will write a research paper outlining new ethical dilemmas in this unprecedented situation.
Dance, Ethics
Research a Bioethical Issue in Emerging Technologies
How should we think about new technology in medicine and biomedical research? What ethical issues arise with advancements in fields like artificial intelligence, genetics, and neuroscience? In this project, you will produce a paper in which you will identify a novel biomedical innovation that you're interested in, research relevant ethical perspectives, and support your own argument on how you think law and policy should intervene, if at all.
Ethics, Public Health
On the explanatory scope of fMRI
Neuro-imaging provides a stunning window into the movements of the human brain. But what can it really say about the mind? This project considers what bearing the distinction between correlation and causation might have on the conclusions we draw from neuro-imaging studies.
Music, Philosophy, Ethics
Finding Algorithmic Success on TikTok
TikTok has grown exponentially in popularity, but how do you become popular on the platform? What are the ethics of promoting one creator over another? This project can take many directions depending on the student's interests. - Students interested in social justice may write an exposé on discriminatory factors that promote creators with certain characteristics or privileges. - Students interested in computer science may explore basic code that underlies social media platforms. - Students interested in law&policy may write a report on how social media platforms should be governed.
Social, AI/ML
The Anything Project
A huge part of science is going past the current boundary of knowledge and delving into the unknown. In this project we will work together on a science subject that you find exciting and find the "limit" to our knowledge. Here is where the fun part begins - we will imagine and create the studies and direction that you would like to see the field go in. Here's an example: Say you are really interested in brain organoids, which are three dimensional cell systems grown in a dish that are designed to try to mimic the brain (also called "brains in a dish"). What's the current limit of these dish brains? Do they look the same? Are the active? How long do they survive? After finding the answers to these questions we will then explore how to push past this boundary. Perhaps you're interested in how to make them survive longer, how would we do that? Maybe you're thinking about whether we can grow other animals' brains in dishes, is it possible? The end of the project could be a set of experiments you'd like to do, an article discussing future directions/implications of the work, or multimedia depicting this process and where you want the field to go.
Neuroscience, Ethics
Biology of Aging
Aging is a heterogeneous, stochastic process by which an organism shows declines across physiological systems over time. Similarly to organismal aging, cells show aging through a process known as cellular senescence, in which cells age over time. This process is accompanied by a series of declines in cellular systems including accumulation of DNA damage, expression of specific proteins, and pro-inflammatory secretions, and these senescent cells avoid cellular death known as apoptosis. A healthy immune system usually responds to cellular senescence by eliminating senescent cells. However, with age, an organism's immune system becomes less functional, allowing senescent cells to build up in tissues. Also, aging is accompanied by weakening of the musculoskeletal systems (bones and muscles), increased prevalence of neurodegenerative diseases (such as dementia), and increased prevalence of cancer. Aging across systems is an incredibly complicated and interesting process and I would love to help a mentee study aging in the immune system, on the cellular level, in the brain, in the cardiovascular system, or any other systems of interest to a mentee to produce a scientific review article, vlog or blog or news and views article for the public, or anything else a student is interested in! There are also very interesting ethics around studying aging that we could learn about and develop a story, blog, vlog, article, or other piece about.
Biology, Ethics
Identifying Cancer Drivers
In this project, you will use existing datasets and scientific papers to identify genes that may drive or cause cancer. By delving into primary scientific literature, you will suggest potential ways these genes may cause cancer and propose ways to test that hypothesis.
Cancer, Ethics
Exploring the applications of spintronics technology
In this project, students would explore real-life applications of spintronics technology, a cutting edge and rapidly evolving field of research. By looking into fundamental research that has happened throughout the past years as well as reading into recent papers that have been published, students can give an overview of the overall topic, as well as potentially propose their own ideas or applications.
Ethics, Physics, Arts, Engineering, Literature
What's the hottest in neuroscience?
There are many articles that boast about the newest, hottest developments in neuroscience. But are they "real"? Do they accurately convey the science? How does this affect the public's view of research and their opinions of science? In this project, we find some popular science articles and compare them to the academically published research. By examining the subtleties (and sometimes not so subtle) of science communication, this project aims to get us thinking about the relationship between science and the public. (Image thanks to iPhone emojis.)
Neuroscience, Ethics