The Research Mentorship Program is a competitive summer program that engages qualified, high-achieving high school students from all over the world in interdisciplinary, hands-on, university-level research. Students will be paired up with a mentor (graduate student, postdoc, or faculty) and choose a research project from a large list of disciplines offered by the program each year. In addition to forging a deep relationship with their mentor, students will learn about research techniques, gain insight into professional research-based opportunities, and mature their academic goals. The lecture series - GRIT talks - will connect students to some of the best minds among the UC Santa Barbara research community as they present on their ground-breaking research and innovative technology. Along with these academic benefits, students will be immersed in university life and network with equally ambitious and curious peers. The program is unique because it allows students to be exposed to a wide variety of interdisciplinary research topics, and then rank a selection of projects that they would prefer to work on. Students will be paired with a project and a research mentor (graduate student, postdoc, or faculty) to conduct hands-on, university-level research. Research topics may change each summer depending on the available mentors, however the focus is always on recent research developments that demonstrate the use of university-level methods of investigation in departments across campus. Please feel free to inquire about any discipline that interests you. Research areas include, but are not limited to: Anthropology, Earth Science, Geography, Music, Biochemistry, Ecology, Global Studies Neuroscience, Biology, Economics,History, Physics, Chemistry, Education, Marine Biology, Psychology, Chicana/o Studies, Engineering, Mathematics, Sociology, Computer Science, Environmental Policy, Media, Arts & Tech, Statistics As registered UC Santa Barbara students, pre-college participants benefit from access to a large number of computer facilities and full access to campus libraries. Additionally, students can explore the University Recreation Center (known as the RecCen), which features weight rooms, basketball, volleyball, racquetball, and squash courts, state-of-the-art fitness equipment, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, tennis courts, and a track.