Student Summer Research Fellowship Program

The Student Summer Research Fellowship Program administered under the Computer Science Department aims at recruiting a group of highly motivated undergraduate students from our partner universities (see list below) to join the faculty-led research groups and conduct research at UChicago in the summer (July and August).

During the 8-week program period, each student will spend their work time with one faculty member and their research team to conduct research. In addition, the program will organize group-based team building activities, workshops, group projects etc. that will expose students to the larger UChicago academic community.

More Info (PDF)

Partner Universities:

• Fudan University
• Keio University
• National Taiwan University
• Peking University
• The Chinese University of Hong Kong, ShenZhen
• The University of Electro-Communications
• The University of Science & Technology of China
• The University of Tsukuba
• Tsinghua University
• Zhejiang University

Program Contact:

Program Support: Nita Yack (nitayack at uchicago.edu )

Faculty Lead: Shan Lu (shanlu at uchicago.edu), Ken Naknagaki (knakagaki at uchicago.edu)

During the application season, applicants will submit their application online via the UChicago application system: https://apply-psd.uchicago.edu/apply/ndv/  The application system is ready for 2026!

At this application site, please select “Non-Degree” and then “Computer Science Student Summer Research Fellowship” as the program.

Application materials should include:

• Candidate Statement (word limit: 300)
• CV/Resume
• Undergraduate Transcript [For Master’s students, both undergraduate and master’s transcripts]
• English Requirement (TOEFL/IELTS report, or UChicago AEPA) **Based on the policy for NDVS at the University, to meet the English requirement, we recognize three types of test: TOEFL iBT Speaking (18 or better), IELTS (Speaking score of 6.0 or better), or AEPA (“Basic” level or above).
• [Only for Master’s students] One Recommendation Letter (Ideally from a Faculty Supervisor / Research Mentor)

Deadline: February 27th March 13th (Fri) [extended], 2026

Faculty Interview & Release Admissions Results: before mid-April, 2026

Student Attendance Confirmation Due: end of April, 2026

Program Period: July 6th (Mon) —August 28 (Fri), 2026 (8-weeks)

Will you tell me if you have successfully received my application material?

After you submit your materials electronically, you will receive a confirmation email. Please do not send inquiries to the Admissions Office requesting status of your application. If your application is incomplete, you will be notified directly. (Watch your email for notifications.)

When can I expect to receive an admission decision?

The admission results will typically be released in April. We will send out the admissions result electronically via email. If you have not heard from us after April 10th, please email us directly.

Why was my application denied? Can I be reconsidered?

We assess a number of factors when evaluating applications to the summer scholar program. Academic background, research experience, test scores, motivations for participating the program and essays all play an equal role in consideration. For international students, English language skills are also assessed. There is no one factor that determines admission. At this time, we are not able to provide specific feedback on your application and all admission decisions are final.

Is the program open to undergraduate or graduate students?

For now, this program only opens to undergraduate students (and master students occasionally) from certain partner universities.

Can I work while being a summer student?

You will not be able to work or get paid during the program period.

What is the language requirement for applying the program?  If I do not have TOEFL/ IELTS score, will I be able to apply for the program?

International applicants may submit either the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) to meet the English language requirement. If you are not able to provide a TOEFL or IELTS score report, you have to take the Academic English Proficiency Assessment (AEPA).

Can I submit SAT, AP or A-Level results instead of TOEFL/IELTS to prove my English proficiency?

No. You must have an official TOEFL or IELTS score sent directly to the University of Chicago, or you can take the AEPA offered by UChicago.

What is the AEPA?

The Academic English Proficiency Assessment (AEPA) is an authentic, highly structured English conversation between a prospective University of Chicago student and an English language specialist at the University of Chicago. An AEPA typically lasts 15 to 30 minutes and includes an academic role play. You can access more information relating to AEPA here.

How should I prepare for the AEPA?

Due to the spontaneous and customized nature of the AEPA, there is no official way to study for an AEPA. The language specialist’s goal is to elicit the test taker’s best possible sample of spoken English in academic context. The language specialist is interested in overall, functional speaking ability rather than only accuracy and grammar.

Can I take the AEPA test after I got admitted?

If you will have a qualified TOEFL score, you do not need to take the AEPA test. Otherwise, you have to get a passing AEPA test score to join the summer program. In the past, some students chose to take the test after getting “conditionally admitted” (conditioned on passing AEPA test). It could work out, but it may delay your Visa application process.

Past Fellowship Outcomes

Students in the Summer Research Fellowship Program have gone on to contribute to projects and publications in a wide range of areas, including human-computer interaction, systems, databases, security, software engineering, machine learning, and algorithmic economics. Their work has appeared at leading venues such as ACM UIST, EuroSys, VLDB, ICSE, NeurIPS, ICML, EC, and AISTATS, with several fellows serving as first authors or co-leading authors.

Selected recent outcomes

2025 — Yuechun Sun (University of Science and Technology of China, Undergraduate)
Contributed to ExVerus: Verus Proof Repair via Counterexample Reasoning — ICML 2026 – Also led a first-author paper under submission to NeurIPS
Hosted by Prof. Kexin Pei, Security and Software Engineering
Paper link

2025 — Jiamin Song (Zhejiang University, Undergraduate)
Contributed to SemRep: Generative Code Representation Learning with Code Transformations — ICML 2026 – Also led a first-author paper under submission to NeurIPS
Hosted by Prof. Kexin Pei, Security and Software Engineering
Paper link

2025 — Diantong Li (Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Undergraduate)
Contributed to Constrained Multi-Objective Bayesian Optimization through Optimistic Constraints Estimation — AISTATS 2025 – First author
Hosted by Prof. Yuxin Chen, Machine Learning
Paper link

2024 — Miyu Fukuoka (University of Electro Communication, Master’s)
Contributed to Buoyancé: Reeling Helium-Inflated Balloons with Mobile Robots on the Ground for Mid-Air Tangible Display, Interaction, and Assembly — ACM UIST 2025; Ars Electronica Campus Exhibit 2025
Hosted by AxLab (Prof. Nakagaki), HCI
Project link

2024 — Kasei Hishida (Keio University, Undergraduate)
Contributed to Beyond Compression: A Comprehensive Evaluation of Lossless Floating-Point Compression — VLDB 2025 – First author
Hosted by ChiData (Prof. Elmore), Databases
Paper link

2024 — Chihao Steven Shen (Chinese University of Hong Kong, Undergraduate)
Contributed to Locus: Agentic Predicate Synthesis for Directed Fuzzing — ICSE 2026
Hosted by Prof. Kexin Pei, Security and Software Engineering
Paper link

2024 — Cheng-Chi Casper Wang (National Taiwan University, Undergraduate)
Contributed to Synthesizing Performance Constraints for Evaluating and Improving Code Efficiency — NeurIPS 2025
Hosted by Prof. Kexin Pei, Security and Software Engineering
Paper link

2024 — Eric Xiao (National Taiwan University, Undergraduate)
Contributed to The Keychain Problem: On Minimizing the Opportunity Cost of Uncertainty — EC 2026 – Co-leading author
Hosted by Prof. Haifeng Xu, Algorithmic Economics
Paper link

2024 — Kensuke Katori (University of Tsukuba, Undergraduate)
Contributed to Vestibular Stimulation Enhances Hand Redirection — ACM UIST 2025
Hosted by Human Computer Integration Lab (Prof. Lopes), HCI
Paper link

2023 — Yu-Kai (Kain) Hung (National Taiwan University, Undergraduate)
Contributed to CARDinality: Interactive Card-shaped Robots with Locomotion and Haptics using Vibration — ACM UIST 2024
Hosted by AxLab (Prof. Nakagaki), HCI
Project link

2023 — Jiaoyi Yao (Chinese University of Hong Kong, Undergraduate)
Contributed to CacheBlend: Fast Large Language Model Serving for RAG with Cached Knowledge Fusion — EuroSys 2025, Best Paper – First author
Hosted by Shan Lu and Junchen Jiang, Systems
Paper link