10 Research Programs for High School Students in Louisiana
If you're a high school student with a serious interest in research, a formal program is one of the best ways to get an opportunity to work on a real problem alongside people who do it for a living. Such an experience teaches practical skills like lab technique, data analysis, scientific writing, and presentation, and connects you with faculty, graduate students, and industry professionals whose feedback and mentorship can shape what you pursue. The connections you build during a summer or yearlong placement often carry forward into recommendation letters, college applications, and early clarity about whether a research career fits you.
Why should you attend a program in Louisiana?
Louisiana is home to several research universities and institutions that open their labs to high school students, including LSU, Tulane, LSUHSC, and the Advanced Materials Research Institute at UNO. The available projects range from engineering and materials science to neuroscience, public health, and NASA-affiliated Earth observation, with formats including full-time summer placements, yearlong mentorships, and lab-intensive college courses. If you live in the state, several programs recruit from specific parishes or metro areas, giving local students a clear path into university-level work. Out-of-state students can also participate through virtual programs hosted by Louisiana institutions or national programs open to applicants across the country.
To help you choose what best fits your interests, we've compiled 10 research programs for high school students in Louisiana.
If you’re looking for online summer programs, check out our blog here.
Key takeaways
These programs span engineering, biomedical research, materials science, mathematics, and AI, with several Louisiana-based programs, such as LSU HSSR and LSUHSC Summer Research Internship, offering stipends alongside free tuition.
Multiple programs specifically prioritize local or regional students, including LSUHSC New Orleans (New Orleans area residents), Tulane's program (Greater New Orleans public school students, with priority for first-generation students), and UNO AMRI (students within 40 miles of the campus).
Bobbie Cates Hicks Science and Medicine Academic Research Training stands out as a year-long commitment, running from a seven-week summer session through 10 hours per week during senior year, while most other programs are summer-only.
Application deadlines range from December (MIT PRIMES-USA) to April (Tulane's rolling deadline), so students should begin preparing materials in the fall to stay ahead of the earliest closings.
1. LSU College of Engineering High School Summer Research (HSSR) Program
Location: Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA
Cost: None
Acceptance rate: Highly selective
Dates: 15–20 hours per week for a total of 120–140 hours over the summer, with schedules varying by placement
Deadline: February 6
Eligibility: Current 9th, 10th, or 11th graders with a 3.5 or higher GPA, and at least 15 years old
Paired with an active faculty research team in one of LSU's engineering departments, you will contribute to an ongoing project, while graduate and undergraduate mentors guide your day-to-day lab or computational work. The program spans chemical, civil, environmental, mechanical, electrical, computer, biological and agricultural, and petroleum engineering. Past participants have built YOLOv8 traffic-light detection systems for autonomous driving platforms, trained machine-learning classifiers to identify pancreatic cancer from fluorescence spectra, produced bio-oil through the pyrolysis of sugarcane bagasse, and run zeolite-catalyzed chemical recycling of low-density polyethylene into fuel products. Workshops on laboratory safety, research ethics, and scientific communication run alongside the research, and all participants complete a safety training certification before entering any lab space. Your results are required for a mandatory poster presentation at the program's close, and the program expects participants to enter their work in a regional science fair.
2. Veritas AI
Location: Virtual
Cost: Varies by program; financial aid available
Acceptance rate: Selective
Dates: Multiple 12 – 15-week cohorts throughout the year
Application deadline: Rolling enrollment; deadlines vary by cohort: Summer (May), Fall (September), Spring (January), and Winter (November). You can check details and apply to the program here.
Eligibility: High school students; AI Fellowship with Publication and Showcase accepts previous AI Scholars participants or those with some experience working with AI or Python.
Veritas AI, founded and run by Harvard graduate students, offers a range of online programs for high school students passionate about artificial intelligence. If you are looking to get started with AI, ML, and data science, you can choose the AI Scholars program. Through this 10-session boot camp, you will learn about the fundamentals of AI and data science and get a chance to work on real-world projects. Another track for more advanced students is the AI Fellowship with Publication & Showcase. During this program, you will get a chance to work 1:1 with mentors from top universities on a unique, individual project. A key feature of this program is that it offers you access to the in-house publication team to help you secure publications in high school research journals. You can check out some examples of past projects here and read about a student’s experience in the program here.
3. LSUHSC New Orleans Summer Research Internship
Location: LSU Health, New Orleans, LA
Cost/Stipend: None; interns earn a $2,645 stipend
Acceptance rate: Highly selective
Dates: June 1 – July 24
Deadline: February 16
Eligibility: High school juniors or seniors aged 16+ attending school or residing in the New Orleans area
Placed with a faculty mentor in a laboratory or clinical setting at LSUHSC, University Medical Center New Orleans, or Children's Hospital, you will learn health sciences techniques and carry out a research project in one of ten departments, ranging from genetics and pharmacology to public health and psychiatry. Past cohorts have produced work spanning TNF-alpha concentration curves on oral squamous cell carcinoma in vitro, tree-inspired deep learning applied to multi-omics data from people living with HIV, the effects of endomorphin-1 on LPS-activated microglia, and population-level analysis of food insecurity associated with hepatitis B and C virus infection. Neuroscience, cancer biology, microbiology and immunology, physiology, cell biology and anatomy, and orthopedics round out the other departments where placements can occur. Seminars throughout the program cover professional development and career preparation, and separate training sessions teach scientific presentation design and delivery. The program closes with a poster session or oral symposium where you present your findings to faculty and peers.
4. Lumiere Research Scholar Program
Location: Remote! You can participate in the program from anywhere in the world
Cost: Varies depending on program type; full financial aid available
Acceptance rate: Selective
Dates: Varies by cohort (summer, winter, fall, and spring); Options range from 12 weeks to a year
Application deadline: Varying deadlines based on cohort
Eligibility: Students in high school who demonstrate a high level of academic achievement
The Lumiere Research Scholar Program is a rigorous research program tailored for high school students. The program offers extensive 1-on-1 research opportunities across a wide range of subject areas for high schoolers to explore. The program pairs you with Ph.D. mentors to work 1-on-1 on an independent research project. At the end of the program, you will have developed an independent research paper! You can choose research topics from subjects such as computer science, data science, engineering, chemistry, psychology, physics, international relations, economics, and more. You can find more details about the application here, and check out students’ reviews of the program here and here.
5. Tulane High School Summer Research Program
Location: Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
Cost: No cost; students are paid a stipend
Acceptance rate: Highly selective
Dates: Six weeks in the summer, with dates varying by placement
Deadline: Rolling until April 24
Eligibility: Rising juniors or seniors from a Greater New Orleans area public school who have applied for financial aid; priority given to free/reduced-price lunch or first-generation students
You will be placed in a School of Science and Engineering research laboratory and work alongside Tulane faculty and graduate students on an active research project over the summer. The school's research covers neuroscience, molecular and cellular biology, astronomy and astrophysics, mathematics, biomedical science, and environmental science, so your project might involve neural imaging analysis, cellular assay development, observational data reduction, mathematical modeling, or field-based environmental sampling. Concurrent enrollment in a Tulane Science Scholars course complements the lab work, with available courses covering neuroscience with laboratory, molecular and cellular biology, astronomy, and applied mathematics. Research placements in active university laboratories expose participants to how academic science operates day-to-day, where experimental timelines shift with results and graduate students serve as close collaborators. The research placement extends beyond the concurrent course, keeping you in the lab after formal instruction ends and allowing deeper engagement with the project.
6. Bobbie Cates Hicks Science and Medicine Academic Research Training
Location: LSU Health, Shreveport, LA
Cost: None
Acceptance rate: Extremely selective, only 8 to 12 students admitted per year
Dates: 7 weeks full-time in the summer, then 10 hrs/week during senior year
Deadline: February 28
Eligibility: Rising seniors in Caddo, Bossier, or DeSoto parishes, with A's and B's in all science classes, a suggested ACT score of 28, and completion or enrollment in biology, chemistry, physics, or other advanced science classes
This program places you with medical clinicians, researchers, and academic staff at LSUHSC Shreveport for a research commitment that extends from the summer before your senior year through the end of that school year. Biomedical research at academic medical centers typically requires months of sustained effort before experimental protocols yield interpretable results, hence the year-long format of this program. Research at the institution covers pharmacology, toxicology, neuroscience, cardiovascular disease, cancer, microbiology and immunology, cellular biology and anatomy, and molecular physiology. Your project might involve characterizing drug toxicity pathways, analyzing cardiovascular tissue samples, or modeling neural signaling mechanisms.
7. UNO AMRI High School Summer Research Program
Location: University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA
Cost/Stipend: No cost; participants earn a $2,000 stipend
Acceptance rate: Highly selective
Dates: June 1 – July 24
Deadline: March 13
Eligibility: High schoolers residing within 40 miles of LSU New Orleans
Working in an active research lab at the Advanced Materials Research Institute, you will either run your own project or contribute to a larger team effort in areas such as nanofabrication, catalysis development, magnetism, solar energy conversion, and thermal and electrical transport properties. Recent projects have included nanomaterial synthesis and characterization, sensor array design, environmental remediation studies, battery materials development, and thin-film deposition, all reflecting AMRI's core mission in advanced materials across chemistry, physics, and engineering. Seminars cover research ethics, career pathways, lab safety, and technical topics including electron microscopy, crystallography, and computational methods, giving you exposure to the analytical tools that drive materials science at the university level. Because projects are exploratory and span both fundamental and applied questions, the outcomes of your work are not predetermined, and high school participants function as contributors to ongoing investigations alongside university personnel. You will share your research results in a public presentation at the program's close.
8. MIT PRIMES-USA
Location: Online
Cost: Free
Acceptance Rate: Extremely selective, fewer than 50 students selected per batch
Dates: January 1 – December 31
Application Deadline: December 31 of the previous year
Eligibility: High school sophomores and juniors residing in the United States, preferably either a USAMO or USAJMO qualifier, who have received a grade A for a college-level proof-based math course, participated in a summer math program, or have a letter of recommendation from a college professor of mathematics
Participants at MIT PRIMES-USA tackle unsolved problems in mathematics or computational biology over a year-long collaboration with an MIT-affiliated mentor who may be a graduate student, postdoc, or researcher. The reading period at the start of the cycle builds the technical background needed for a specific problem, after which you transition into months of active research as ideas develop, fail, and reshape. Research spans pure mathematics (algebra, algebraic geometry, algebraic topology, number theory, probability, representation theory, combinatorics) and applied areas including computational biology, theoretical computer science, and mathematics of data. Past participants have produced original work in graph theory, algebraic combinatorics, and number theory, with papers archived on the PRIMES website and in some cases submitted to professional journals or national science competitions. The cycle concludes with a presentation at the annual PRIMES conference at MIT.
9. George Mason University ASSIP (Aspiring Scientists Summer Internship Program)
Location: Varies by mentor; many are open to remote internships
Cost: $1,299 + $25 application fee
Acceptance Rate: Highly selective
Dates: June 18 – August 12
Application Deadline: February 15
Eligibility: High school students aged 15 and older; International students can apply
The range of available research areas at ASSIP spans astronomy, proteomics, molecular medicine, chemistry, drug discovery, bioengineering, environmental science, neuroscience, physics, data science, and robotics, and each intern works one-on-one with a George Mason faculty researcher. The research work can be as hands-on as using a robotic arrayer and cultured endometriosis cell lines to test whether disrupting autophagy could slow abnormal cell growth, or as involved as contributing to genomic and proteomic analyses of cancer and inflammatory diseases. Internships are offered in remote, in-person, or hybrid formats depending on the project, and mentors post their preferred format on the program's prospective mentor listing so you can filter by format before applying. Scientific writing development runs throughout the program alongside the laboratory or computational work. The internship concludes with the annual ASSIP Research Symposium, where you present a poster on your findings to researchers and peers.
10. Stanford AIMI Summer Research Internship
Location: Online
Cost: $2,400. Full or partial need-based financial aid is available.
Acceptance Rate: Selective, around 50 students accepted
Dates: June 15 – 26 or July 6 – 17
Application Deadline: February 20
Eligibility: U.S. high school students entering grades 9–12 aged 14+
Artificial intelligence is reshaping clinical diagnostics and predictive modeling in medicine, and this program immerses you at the intersection through mentored team research on health AI problems, guided by Stanford researchers. Small project teams tackle questions involving machine learning applied to medical imaging, healthcare data privacy, model evaluation, and clinical decision support. Technical sessions on machine learning fundamentals run alongside the research, covering how models are trained, validated, and assessed for bias before deployment in clinical settings. A Meet-the-Expert speaker series brings in professionals from academia, industry, nonprofits, and government to discuss how AI is being adopted across different areas of healthcare. Project teams may also coordinate additional virtual working sessions outside the main program hours to advance their research.
Frequently asked questions
1. What research programs are available for high school students in Louisiana?
Options include engineering-focused programs, such as LSU HSSR and UNO AMRI, biomedical and clinical research programs, such as LSUHSC New Orleans Summer Research Internship and Bobbie Cates Hicks Science and Medicine Academic Research Training, and university-based programs open to students nationwide, such as Tulane High School Summer Research Program and virtual options like Lumiere and MIT PRIMES-USA.
2. Are there paid research programs for high school students in Louisiana?
Yes, LSUHSC New Orleans offers a $2,645 stipend, UNO AMRI offers a $2,000 stipend, and Tulane's program pays a stipend as well. LSU HSSR and Bobbie Cates Hicks Science and Medicine Academic Research Training are free but do not specify a stipend.
3. Which Louisiana research programs are best for students interested in biomedical or health sciences?
Students interested in biomedical research might consider LSUHSC New Orleans Summer Research Internship for placements across ten health science departments, Bobbie Cates Hicks Science and Medicine Academic Research Training for a year-long clinical research commitment in Shreveport, and Tulane's program for neuroscience and molecular biology research paired with coursework.
4. When should I apply to research programs for high school students in Louisiana?
The earliest deadline is MIT PRIMES-USA (December 31 of the prior year), followed by LSU HSSR (February 6) and LSUHSC New Orleans (February 16). Tulane's program accepts rolling applications until April 24, making it one of the more flexible deadlines on this list.