Moore Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program

Mission

The mission of the Moore Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (MURAP) is to contribute in a significant way to achieving diversity and inclusive excellence in higher education by increasing the number of students in the US who pursue doctoral degrees in the social sciences, humanities, and fine arts.

Focus

The Moore Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (MURAP) at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill is a paid summer fellowship designed to foster the entrance of talented students from diverse backgrounds within the humanities, social sciences, and fine arts into PhD programs and faculty positions in U.S. colleges and universities. A program of the Institute of African American Research, MURAP seeks to increase the number of individuals holding faculty positions within the academy who are from diverse racial and ethnic groups. The program serves the related goals of providing scholarly role models for youth and structuring campus environments so that they will be more conducive to improved racial and ethnic relations. MURAP aims to achieve its mission by identifying and supporting students of great promise and helping them to become scholars of the highest distinction.

Each summer, the program brings a cohort of 20 undergraduates (rising juniors and seniors) from colleges and universities in the U.S. to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus for an intensive, ten-week research and graduate school professional development experience. Students work with faculty mentors who guide student participants in an original research project. Students also attend writing workshops, receive training in research communication skills, take GRE classes, and participate in other professional development activities to prepare them for success in graduate school and academic careers.

History

The Moore Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (MURAP) was sparked in 1989 when three students who were majoring in humanities disciplines applied to the Summer Pre-Graduate Research Apprentice Program (a program for STEM research) and expressed interest in a summer research experience at UNC-Chapel Hill. The three students were housed in UNC’s Institute for the Arts and Humanities while pursuing research projects with a faculty mentor. Over the next few years, the program grew to support students in social sciences and humanities each year and officially became the Minority Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program. In 1996, a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation provided substantial support for expanding and sustaining the program. In 2002, the program was moved to the Institute of African American Research (IAAR), where it is currently housed. In 2003, MURAP retained its acronym but was renamed to honor the program’s first Ph.D. recipient, Dr. Mignon Moore. After 24 years of generous support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, support for the program is now provided by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the program continues to thrive.

Become A Student Fellow

Twenty students majoring in disciplines in the social sciences, humanities, and fine arts are selected each year to participate in MURAP. Student fellows will spend 10 weeks on UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus, pursuing an original research project under the mentorship of a UNC faculty member. They will also participate in a range of required professional scholarly development activities, including a weekly seminar and an annual conference where students and faculty present their research.

We welcome applications from prospective student participants who meet our eligibility requirements. To learn about the program requirements and submit your application, click on the link below.

Application for Summer 2025

Application FAQs

Example Weekly Schedule

Become A Faculty Mentor

MURAP mentors are essential to our program because, without mentors’ guidance, student fellows’ research and understanding of the process to achieve research excellence would not be possible. Being a faculty mentor is an intensive and rewarding experience, as mentors work closely with students and are consequently able to be instrumental in students’ scholarly growth and learning.

Eligibility:

Faculty mentors must be tenure, tenure track, or fixed-term faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill in any social science, humanities, or arts field. They must be prepared to fulfill the requirements of the position as described below.

Each mentor directs two students in an independent research project from conception to completion and are expected to meet with two student advisees at least two times per week to 1) provide regular and detailed feedback on students’ projects, 2) discuss various aspects of the profession, and 3) share their own interests as a teacher and researcher. In addition, mentors participate in a two-hour seminar on Tuesday afternoons during each week of the MURAP program.

MURAP faculty mentors must be in residence in Chapel Hill throughout the entire period of the program. They must participate in all required program components, including the program conference.

Apply to Be A Faculty Mentor

Research

Each summer, MURAP Student Fellows conduct research under the mentorship of a faculty member. Students present their research at a weekly seminar as well as an annual conference. Starting in 2020, UNC Libraries added a MURAP collection in the Carolina Digital Repository consisting of the summer scholars' final research papers.

View the MURAP research collection

MURAP Scholars Class of 2020

Research Talkback Series

This summer, MURAP Scholars presented their research projects during their Tuesday Seminar. The following Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, each of the scholars conducted a #murapchat via Twitter with Communications Specialist, Blaque Robinson. To see the conversation click on the students' name.

Jamayka Young

Project Title: Shadow of a Shadow: The Role of Mental Health and Wellness for Black LGBT and Gender Marginalized People in the Modern Black Liberation Movement
Mentor: Dr. Shauna Cooper
Date: 7/22/2020

Aleyah Coleman

Project Title: Racial Identity and Well-Being Among African American Girls and Women: A Developmental Perspective
Mentor: Dr. Shauna Cooper
Date: 7/22/2020

Bryant Taylor

Project Title: The Body Knows: Calling Out White Supremacy in the Age of COVID
Mentor: Dr. Ariana Vigil
Date: 7/21/2020

Eden Melles

Project Title: Does Size Really Matter? Explaining the Determinants of Nonprofit Organizations' Success in Obtaining Federal Grants
Mentor: Dr. Isaac Unah
Date: 7/21/2020

Vicki Li

Project Title: The Race Talk on Reddit: 'China Virus' and its effects on Asian-Americans
Mentor: Dr. Lamar Graham
Date: 7/20/2020

Tyler White

Project Title: in arms: dismantling power, liberation as healing and transcending the apparatus
Mentor: Dr. Kumi Silva
Date: 7/20/2020

Ayriel Coleman

Project Title: The American Opiate Crisis and the Price of Blackness
Mentor: Dr. Isaac Unah
Date: 7/17/2020

Ezekiel Vergara

Project Title: Care(less Government), Crisis, and the Cuban Revolution: Examining the Adequacy of Thomistic Just Cause
Mentor: Dr. Miguel La Serna
Date: 7/17/2020

Ariana Guzman

Project Title: Dialect as Presented in Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels
Mentor: Dr. Lamar Graham
Date: 7/15/2020

Angelina Coronado

Project Title: La Mulata Printed & Framed: On the Depiction and Circulations of Colonial Allegory
Mentor: Dr. Michael Palm
Date: 7/15/2020

Sunshine Spiva

Project Title: The Associations between Racial Discrimination and Alcohol Consumption: The Role of Rumination
Mentor: Dr. Tanisha Burford
Date: 7/14/2020

Isabel Levin

Project Title: They Don't Know How to Complain: How American Schools Have Forgotten Immigrant Parents.
Mentor: Dr. Kumi Silva
Date: 7/10/2020

Ja'Chelle Ball

Project Title: The Identity of Activism: How Gender and Racial Identity Relate to Activism Among African Americans
Mentor: Dr. Tanisha Burford
Date: 7/9/2020

Sophia Rekeibe

Project Title: Haydar on the Radar: Fighting Orientalism and Global Patriarchy through Hip Hop
Mentor: Dr. Michael Figueroa
Date: 7/8/2020

Javin D'Souza

Project Title: The Politics of Visibility in Media Representations of Invisible Disabilities
Mentor: Dr. Ariana Vigil
Date: 7/3/2020

Alix Swann

Project Title: Gay Is (Not) Okay? Queer Identities at an All Women's Historically Black College
Mentor: Dr. Charlene Regester
Date: 7/2/2020

Chloë Jackson

Project Title: Black Values Defined: The Wiz as Allegory
Mentor: Dr. Michael Figueroa
Date: 7/1/2020

Victoria Dey

Project Title: "Le Vrai Français": A Manipulation of Collective Cultural Memory and Collective Identity in Postwar France.
Mentor: Dr. Miguel La Serna
Date: 6/26/2020

Jaelyn Taylor

Project Title: When Black Code Becomes the Black Codes
Mentor: Dr. Michael Palm
Date: 6/25/2020

Sidney Garner

Project Title: On and Off Screen: Race in Buddy Cop and Crime Films
Mentor: Dr. Charlene Regester
Date: 6/24/2020

Annual Conference

Every July, MURAP hosts an annual two-day conference exploring current topics in academic research. The conference provides students with a glimpse of an important aspect of academic life: the presentation of work to an interdisciplinary and critical academic audience. MURAP students have an opportunity to share their own research with a wider audience, allowing the conference to serve as a space to showcase student talent. Additionally, as noted scholars from colleges and universities throughout the nation are conference presenters speaking to the year’s theme, students gain the opportunity to interact firsthand with professionals in their fields.

Each year the conference focuses on a different theme. Samples of past programs are below.

Previous Conferences

Reclaiming Voices Booklet – 2022