DARE: Diversifying Access to Research in Engineering

UC Berkeley program for promoting undergraduate research opportunities in EE&CS

Applications open now!

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Our Mission

DARE is a UC Berkeley program created to match undergraduate students with research opportunities in EECS and to promote diversity. Our mission is to encourage and assist students in finding long lasting research opportunities that also fit their interests and abilities. We welcome all interested students with strong academic performance to apply.

We discovered that the most challenging barrier to participating in research for students is reaching out to professors and finding a match that works for both the student and the professor. Our goal is to act as an active liaison to remove this barrier and make electrical engineering and computer science research more readily accessible, as well as encourage diversity of thought in these growing fields.

This program is supported and funded by .

How DARE Works for Undergrads

Submit Application

To kickstart the process, any interested students can fill out a brief application for DARE. The application will ask for a CV, transcript, professor preferences, and availability to do research among other information. To get a better sense of what each professor is looking for, feel free to look at their websites and/or research.
Matched with Professors

Given each professor's unique criteria for taking on an undergraduate student researcher, we as organizers carefully look through all student applications and "match" students to professors whose criteria they meet. When a student is "matched" with a professor, we notify the professor of the match and provide all of the student’s application information. A student can be matched to any number of professors - if a student is matched to multiple professors, all professors are notified at the same time.
Contacted by Professors

It is up to a professor and his/her students to decide whether or not they will contact each student match. If a professor or his/her graduate students reach out to a DARE student, any discussions that occur will be independent of DARE organizers. DARE students are oftentimes contacted by multiple professors and can choose to work with whichever professor(s) they would like to.
Reapply

Don't worry if a professor does not reach out this semester! We will notify you and encourage you to apply again the following semester. In many cases, professors’ criteria include relevant upper division classes, so once you receive new grades from this semester we strongly encourage you to reapply next semester. Additionally, we are continually enlisting new professors to match students with. There is always potential for a future match.

We are a new program and appreciate any feedback on our process to improve in the future. Our feedback form is here.

How DARE Works for Grad Students

Check If Your Advisor is Part of DARE

You can only access DARE if your advisor is part of the DARE program. You can check if your advisor is a part of the program below. If they are not, please contact us and we can reach out to them on your behalf!
Get Access to DARE

Once your advisor is a part of DARE, you must sign the FERPA compliance form here, then contact us so we can add you to the system. This form must be re-signed every year for you to maintain access to DARE; we will send an email periodically.
Find Undergrads

You now have access to all the diverse and talented students who have applied to DARE! You can find all of the applicants here. You can click on each student to see their CV, grades, and other information. You can also filter by their application cycle, by which courses they have taken, their minimum GPA, etc. This list of students will be updated whenever an undergrad submits their application.