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
Where to focus when jumping?
Improving jump performance is a key component of sports. Should athlete focus their attention internally (on their muscle) or externally (on their goal) to improve jump performance? Run a project with your friends and see if they jump higher when focusing at their goal, or when focusing on how their muscles are moving.
Psychology, Statistics
Dams and Disease: An Ecological Solution to Schistosomiasis in Senegal
This case study is about the effects dam building and land use change have had on schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease, in the Senegal River Basin in West Africa. Construction of the Diama Dam at the mouth of the Senegal River was intended to bring various human health and economic benefits. While there were some positive impacts, the dam also had unintended consequences. For one, it affected the life cycle of a native river prawn, hindering its essential migration to the mixed fresh and saltwater estuary near the Atlantic Ocean. An important predator in the river ecosystem, the local extinction of prawns led to an upstream explosion in the snail species that serve as a reservoir for schistosomiasis. Disease rates spiked and schistosomiasis has been endemic in Senegal since the dam was completed in 1986. As similar human infrastructure projects are proposed worldwide, it is key to understand the effect these developments could have not only on the environment but also on human health. Past interventions addressing schistosomiasis have focused on the distribution of therapeutic drugs. These campaigns have been unsuccessful in countries like Senegal. One reason is because they fail to consider how social, ecological, economic, cultural, and health access factors affect the transmission of disease. We will work to figure out how we can be mindful of these complexities and the original ecosystem balance that kept snail populations in check. We will propose a method for reintroduction of the native prawn species as an ecological intervention to complement drug therapy. This intervention has been found to reduce schistosomiasis rates and, if successful and sustainable, could provide food and livelihood security for people living in the Senegal River Basin.
Environmental Science, AI/ML, Statistics
A bayesian basketball win prediction system
Bayes rule is crucial to modern statistics (as well as data science, machine learning). Using some results from Bayesian statistics one can model the distribution of basketball performance stat distributions. Using a bayesian model to predict the probability distribution of these statistics we can attempt to predict a teams win and loss rate versus another team by drawing samples from these distributions and computing correlation to win or loss. Project can be as simple or as complicated as the student would like, simple normal models, mixture models, Gibbs sampling, and hidden Markov models can all be featured, based on students interest and comfort. Student will spend some time 1) learning about bayes rule, and learning about some famous probability distributions 2) learning how to code a fairly simple simulation in R or python (choice is yours) 3)Learning how to interpret the significance of statistical results and adjust results over time based on success/failure of model over time.
Math, AI/ML, Statistics
COVID-19 and Global Financial Crisis
It is shocking how the economic effects of COVID-19 are far outweighting the ones from the Global Financial Crisis 2007-08. How much is the difference in terms of employment? Production? Let's go to the data!
Economics, Math, Finance, Statistics
Final Notes
With previous projects, students would learn to gather and analyze data from different sectors/countries using Excel or any statistical software.
Economics, Math, Finance, Statistics
I Feel it in My Body: The Relationship Between Mental and Physical Health
Mental and physical health are intimately connected. For example, during childhood, anxiety may manifest primarily as physical symptoms like stomachaches or headaches. Mental illnesses increase your risk of developing physical illness in the future, and vice versa. In this project, we will make use of a publicly available, large longitudinal dataset (e.g., AddHealth) to explore the relationship between physical and mental health. You will learn how to perform a literature review on a topic, develop a testable research question and hypothesis, evaluate your hypothesis using statistics, explore your data using appropriate visualizations, interpret your findings, and write up your results in a scientific paper for others to learn about.
Biology, Public Health, Statistics
Evaluating the Effect of SFFA Affirmative Action Decision on Undergraduate Admissions
Disparity in access to higher education is a problem that affects students on a national scale. It would be relevant to evaluate the impact of the recent Supreme Court ruling (to eliminate affirmative action in admissions decisions) on the disparate acceptance of those historically under-represented in higher education (by gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, LGBTQ+ identity, etc). By using publicly available application and acceptance data at various levels of trainings, we can evaluate the relative effect of the ruling, and perform additional literature review to identify interventions aimed at achieving parity in higher education.
Neuroscience, Computer Science, Social Science, Statistics
Developing a new method of measuring multiraciality
Have you ever wondered what happens to data collected from participants who check the box "Multi-racial" when asked about their race or ethnicity? In most cases, those data points are discarded, because we currently lack a reliable and effective method of analyzing racial-ethnic differences among multiracial individuals. This project proposes a new statistical analysis method that potentially allows us to find unique and groundbreaking insights into the collection and measurement of multiracial data.
Psychology, Business, Statistics, Organizational Leadership
Modeling patient survival
Knowing what the survival rates and trajectory of a patient is extremely important for doctors to help them think about a treatment plan! How accurately can we model someone's survival? This project will involve learning the basics of survival analysis and machine learning techniques in R.
Math, AI/ML, Statistics
Who's Allowed to be a Citizen?: The History of Exclusionary Immigration Laws in the U.S.
This project examines the history of immigration laws in the U.S. and how these laws have excluded different groups overtime. How have these laws decided who's allowed to enter the country and become a citizen? What are the reasonings for these laws?
Quantitative, Social Science, Statistics
Psychiatric Applications of Neuromodulatory Interventions
In this project, you will learn the mechanism of action for a specific neuromodulatory intervention (e.g., electroconvulsive therapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation, etc). You will then review the current literature regarding the application of the intervention and discuss potential future directions. The project will culminate in writing a scientific review paper on your chosen neuromodulatory intervention. Prerequisites - Basic understanding of biology - Strong interest in the topic - A few hours of work outside of each session Additional Information You will need access to scientific journal databases, which can often be accessed through your local library.
Neuroscience, Psychology, Cognitive, Statistics
Mental health intervention development using a community participatory approach
Actively engage multiple stakeholders in designing and development mental health interventions. Tailor the intervention content and delivery to best meet the needs of the individuals in need.
Social Science, Statistics
Poverty trends
How did world poverty trends change in the last decade? Which regions improved and which did not? What are the possible explanations?
Economics, Math, Finance, Statistics
How are Effects of Stress, Trauma, and Adversity Transmitted Across Generations?
Not only can stress, adversity, and trauma influence mental and physical health of someone who directly experiences them, they can also be transmitted to the next generation. In this project, you will review the literature on how mothers' experiences of stress, trauma, or adversity influence her child's development within one biological system (e.g., the brain, gut microbiome). You will learn how to evaluate scientific literature, synthesize findings across studies, and organize your work into sections, ultimately culminating in the writing of a literature review.
Biology, Public Health, Statistics
Design and Code an Arduino Robot for Autonomous Navigation
In this mentorship project, I will guide you as you explore Arduino, an open-source microcontroller platform, and embark on designing, building, and coding your own robot for autonomous navigation. Throughout the project, I will provide you with valuable resources and tools to help you learn about Arduino and how it can be used for robotics projects. You will have the opportunity to brainstorm and create the physical structure of your robot, taking into consideration factors such as size, weight, and mobility. Together, we will explore various sensors that can be integrated into your robot to enable it to perceive its surroundings effectively. I will assist you in accessing resources and learning materials to understand how to code your robot using Arduino's user-friendly programming language and development environment. You will gain knowledge in programming behaviors like obstacle detection, avoidance strategies, and path planning algorithms. As your mentor, I will provide guidance and support throughout the project, helping you troubleshoot any challenges you encounter.
Engineering, Math, Statistics
Measuring the impact of online reviews on customer satisfaction and loyalty for a hotel booking platform.
This project aims to design and conduct a survey to measure how online reviews influence customer satisfaction and loyalty for a hotel booking platform. The project will use a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative data from online surveys, interviews, and focus groups. The project will also analyze the relationship between online reviews, customer satisfaction, loyalty, and behavioral outcomes, such as repeat purchases, referrals, and complaints. The project will require skills in survey design, data collection, data analysis, and report writing. The project will be relevant for students who are interested in marketing, consumer behavior, or hospitality management.
Economics, Math, Business, Statistics
The Study
Do you have the perfect research questions and a clear sense of how you want to go about answering them? Then let's do the study together! By conducting a psychology study, you'll put together a research plan, carry it out over a period of time, and learn how to synthesize the data. Together, we'll put your research skills to test, discuss extensively the ethics of psychology research, and take data-analysis step-by-step. At the end of this project, you'll have completed a research study, and earn the life-long bragging rights among family and friends!
Social, Psychology, Social Science, Statistics
Data Analysis of an Open EEG Data Repository
Electroencephalography (EEG) is a non-invasive neural recording that measure electrical potentials generated by the brain using scalp electrodes. In an effort to open scientific collaboration to global researchers, scientists have released EEG datasets as open repositories on websites such as OpenNeuro and PhysioNet, among others. This project would involve analyzing a dataset using data science and statistical methods in pursuit of scientific insight regarding a hypothesis-driven research question. This project will utilize skills ranging from scientific literature review, hypothesis generation and research design, implementation of statistical methods, and programming in Python/MATLAB. This project would be ideal for a student interest in neuroscience or medicine with an aptitude for quantitative methods and coding.
AI/ML, Statistics
Evaluating the impact of a Positive Post-It Notes Program on High School Students' Mental Health
The vast majority of research in clinical psychology is focused on what we call downstream factors or those related to current mental health conditions and people already involved in treatment. However, its just as important to prevent mental health problems from developing! Finding ways to enhance community and social support is key to reducing the likelihood that people will develop mental health problems. Positive Post-It Note programs are pretty common in High Schools and Colleges, but only related programs (and in older samples), such as Caring Contacts, have been evaluated. You could launch such a program in your school by creating a pre- and post-program survey administered via email or text to see its impact on psychological wellbeing. If you're feeling super motivated, you could provide the same survey to another school that would not receive the intervention and compare!
Psychology, Social Science, Statistics
Player Projection Model
538's RAPTOR and basketball index's PIPM are just two examples of predictive models that take in a players past and current performance to predict out how they will be in the coming years. Similar to the draft model, understanding which player's are on the verge of improving and which have the potential to decline is important for NBA front offices. This project will include data gathering and cleaning, predictive modeling with the potential to create an app based visualization to show results.
Sports Analytics, Statistics
