Mission Statement:
The mission of the University of Utah Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) is to facilitate and promote undergraduate student-faculty collaborative research and creative works in all disciplines throughout the University of Utah campus.
What we do:
OUR supports undergraduate research through: funding travel & small grants, Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) scholarships, Summer Program Undergraduate Research experiences, and scholarships. OUR partners with faculty and research clusters on cutting-edge research. We advance undergraduate research with semester symposia and the publication opportunities with the Undergraduate Research Journal publication. We offer research advising at all stages of their research experience. In line with our commitment to education, we further knowledge through the Undergraduate Research Education Series. We recognize research excellence with Undergraduate Research Scholar Designation (URSD) and an annual awards ceremony.
Dr. Annie Isabel Fukushima is Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Director of the Office of Undergraduate Research, and Associate Professor in the Division of Ethnic Studies with the School for Cultural & Social Transformation at University of Utah. Prior to joining the faculty of University of Utah, Dr. Fukushima was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Rutgers University (2013 – 2015) with the Institute for Research on Women and the Department of Women and Gender Studies. She received her Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley in Ethnic Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies. She is the author of the award-winning book Migrant Crossings: Witnessing Human Trafficking in the US (Stanford University Press, 2019). Fukushima's book Migrant Crossings received the American Sociological Association (ASA) Asia and Asian America Section Book Award: Asian America (2020). She has authored multiple community based studies and scholarly articles that focus on: racialized and gender-based violence, human trafficking, labor, migration, race, and sexuality. She is the Co-PI for a National Science Foundation grant to grow minority retention in higher education through a postdoctoral training program in collaboration with Dr. Barthelemy and co-lead and founder of the Gender-Based Violence Consortium and has expertise in providing expert witness testimony on issues related to human trafficking.