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Browse project ideas by Polygence mentors
Analyzing publicly available sequencing data to answer questions
In this project, you will need to do a lot of tutorials to learn how to analyze big data sets. However, once you have those skills, you can download publicly available data and start asking your own questions. During this project, we will work on a biological area and analysis skills simultaneously. Depending on your level of coding skills, this could be a project that requires a lot of time in between sessions. But, you will learn a valuable skill for future labs.
Cancer, Biology
Research Paper - How does the brain repair itself after injury?
In this project, you will write a scientific review paper exploring how the brain responds and adapts after injury such as traumatic brain injury or stroke. Topics may include neuroplasticity, inflammation, and the role of supporting glial cells. You will learn how to find and critically evaluate scientific literature and synthesize it into a coherent review paper. Through this process, you will develop skills in scientific reading, interpretation, and writing while gaining a deeper understanding of brain repair and recovery after injury.
Neuroscience
Cardiac Devices
I would love to work with a student for an integrative device that helps patients in heart failure. Rather than be bed-bound, this device will integrate artifical intelligence to regulate an internal pump that supports circulation and heart rythms in those with the sickest hearts.
Biology, Engineering, Chemistry, Medicine
Galois Theory and Polynomial Symmetries
You've heard of the quadratic formula. Maybe you've even heard of the cubic formula. There's even a quartic formula... but not a formula for degree 5 polynomials. The reason is a deep theory about the symmetries of roots of polynomials. A project on Galois theory could study what symmetries do and how they lead to these formulas.
Math, Statistics, Physics
Wetlands, Youth Advocacy, and Environmental Economics in East Africa
This project examines how wetlands support communities, economies, and climate resilience, with a focus on East Africa. Students will explore the economic and environmental value of wetlands, including flood protection, water access, biodiversity, tourism, agriculture, and public health. Rather than treating conservation as only an environmental issue, the project frames wetlands as public assets shaped by policy decisions, community action, and competing development pressures. Students may investigate case studies such as Manguo Wetland in Kenya, examining how urban growth, land use, pollution, deforestation, and weak enforcement affect fragile ecosystems. The project will also consider the role of youth advocacy, local organizations, and public institutions in protecting natural resources. Students will learn how to ask practical policy questions, such as whether conservation programs create economic benefits, how governments can balance development and ecological protection, and how community voices can influence environmental decision making. Through guided research, students will work with policy reports, environmental data, case studies, and academic sources to evaluate the relationship between sustainability and economic development. By the end of the project, students will be able to explain how environmental economics can help communities protect natural resources while also supporting livelihoods, equity, and long term resilience.
Economics
AI, Climate, and Health Equity: How Technology Can Help Communities Prepare for Global Challenges
This project explores how artificial intelligence can be used to address major global challenges at the intersection of climate change, public health, and economic inequality. Students will examine how climate related risks such as extreme heat, air pollution, flooding, food insecurity, and disease outbreaks affect communities differently, especially in low income, rural, or under resourced regions. Rather than treating AI as only a technical tool, this project asks how technology can be designed and governed in ways that are ethical, equitable, and useful for real public policy decisions. Students may investigate how AI is being used to predict health risks, map vulnerable populations, improve disaster response, strengthen healthcare delivery, or support climate adaptation planning. The project will also examine the risks of AI, including biased data, unequal access to digital tools, privacy concerns, and the possibility that technology driven solutions may overlook local knowledge or community needs. Through guided research, students will learn how to evaluate policy reports, academic studies, case studies, and data sources from global institutions, governments, and public health organizations. Students will develop a clear research question, compare different policy approaches, and assess whether AI can meaningfully improve health and sustainability outcomes. By the end of the project, students will be able to explain how economics, technology, healthcare policy, and global affairs intersect in one of the most urgent policy questions of the future.
Economics
Investigating mutations associated with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH)
In this project I helped a student identify mutations that are likely to be related to FH by looking at genetic data from patients. We looked at what genes the mutations were located in, what the mutations looked like, and what biological processes and molecular functions may be associated with the development of this disease.
Biology
Health Behavior PSA
Choosing a public health issue, design a campaign to help address the issue by leveraging health behavior change theory
Public Health, Neuroscience
Resilience Across Development
A potential research project could examine how resilience processes evolve across key developmental periods and whether factors that promote resilience differ across childhood, adolescence, and emerging adulthood. The mentee could conduct a narrative or systematic review synthesizing evidence on individual (e.g., emotion regulation, cognitive flexibility), interpersonal (e.g., social support, family relationships), and contextual (e.g., school and community resources) factors associated with resilient outcomes following adversity. Particular attention could be given to developmental mechanisms that explain why some youth maintain psychological well-being despite exposure to significant stressors or trauma. This work could identify critical periods for intervention and inform developmentally tailored approaches to resilience promotion.
Psychiatry, Statistics, Psychology
Do People Like You More When You Wear the Same Clothes?
Overconsumption of clothing contributes a large portion to yearly carbon emissions and waste. People intuit that every new occasion they may be photographed at (i.e., wedding, vacation, etc) calls for a new outfit and that it's a bad look to be seen wearing the same outfit. However, new outfits add change and deviation to our visual conception of another person. And a large body of literature (see literature on the Mere Exposure Effect) predicts the opposite - that we like things (and people!) that are familiar to us. This suggests that either 1) people may overestimate how much being seen wearing the same outfit is a "bad look" or 2) that the mere-exposure effect and fluency work differently in the domain of fashion. Either insight would be very interesting for Psychology and Consumer journals. This question could be explored through a series of experiments and more naturalistic non-experiments, depending on the time and resources of the mentee.
Social, Psychology, Cognitive
