how to start doing research at ucsd

Created on April 23, 2026

2026   ·   research   ucsd   mentorship   undergraduate   masters   ·   guides

I keep getting similar questions from passionate undergraduate and master’s students who want to get started in research at UC San Diego, so I am writing this once and will keep updating it as new questions come up.

This is mostly for students interested in HCI, design, human-centered AI, and adjacent work, but a lot of it generalizes.

The short version

You do not need to be perfect on day one.

You do need curiosity, initiative, follow-through, and genuine respect for other people’s time.

The more you can self-learn before joining a lab, the better your odds usually are. Classes, lab meetings, and project meetings can teach you a lot, but labs also tend to notice the students who are already trying to build their taste, skills, and judgment on their own.

Skills that help a lot

Some mix of the following is very useful:

  • Design and prototyping. Figma, wireframing, storyboarding, and the ability to communicate ideas visually.
  • Taste and judgment. Being able to notice when something feels generic, confusing, weak, or unconvincing, and having some instinct for how to improve it.
  • Builder fluency. Some solid development understanding so you can prototype, debug, and collaborate with technical teammates.
  • Rapid prototyping. Yes, being able to vibe-code can help. But only if you can evaluate what the model gives you rather than blindly accept it.
  • Research skill. Reading papers, tracing related work, doing literature reviews, and figuring out what is still missing.
  • Methods. Statistics classes and research methodology classes matter more than many students think.
  • Communication. Writing clearly, making slides and figures, asking sharp questions, and giving useful updates.

You do not need all of these before you start. But if you can honestly show progress on several of them, that helps a lot.

Resources worth checking

Deadlines and eligibility change all the time, so always check the official pages. A few good starting points:

This is not a complete list. It is just enough to give you a map.

What to actually do

The best outreach is intentional outreach.

  • Reach out to professors whose work you are actually interested in.
  • Do not spam every professor in your department.
  • Go to seminars, talks, and office hours.
  • Read the lab website.
  • Read at least a couple of papers.
  • Try to understand the problems they care about, not just the title of the project.
  • When you do reach out, ask informed questions and explain why there is a real fit.

The same rule applies when reaching out to graduate students or undergraduate researchers in a lab. Their time is valuable too. Respect people’s time, but do not be afraid to reach out thoughtfully. A lot of people were helped by others earlier in their own journey, and many are happy to pay that forward.

If you are still figuring out what you even care about, that is normal. One of the best ways to discover your actual research interests is to attend talks, read papers, sit in on seminars, and notice which questions keep pulling you back in. If you are exploring HCI and design at UC San Diego, the weekly Wednesday Design Lab research meeting is a great place to hear current work, learn how research conversations sound in practice, and get a better sense of what kinds of questions you are actually interested in.

Once you have done some of that homework, you will usually have much better questions. That is often the right time to go to office hours or ask for a coffee chat.

What I usually look for

I am usually more excited by a student who is clearly curious, prepared, and serious about learning than by someone who is trying to sound impressive.

Strong signals include:

  • evidence that you really engaged with a lab’s work before reaching out
  • a concrete domain, question, or problem space you genuinely care about
  • willingness to read, prototype, iterate, and do unglamorous work well
  • ability to learn independently rather than waiting to be told every next step
  • good collaboration energy

A note on authorship expectations

This section is adapted from Scott Klemmer’s guidance on working with his group, which I think sets a very healthy bar for undergraduate and master’s researchers.

My rough view is:

  • If you do your RA work diligently and reliably, that matters a lot. That work should be credited, belongs on your resume, and absolutely helps with recommendation letters.
  • Co-authorship is a higher bar. It usually means you contributed something substantively important to the paper, not just the tasks you were assigned.
  • That contribution can be intellectual, technical, methodological, or a major implementation effort, but it should materially shape the project.
  • Co-authorship also means staying invested through the tedious parts: iterations, studies, analysis, figure making, writing, revisions, and often review cycles.
  • Authorship conversations should happen early, not right before a deadline.

In short: doing assigned work well is valuable and appreciated. Co-authorship usually comes from helping carry the project all the way to a strong finish.

Before you reach out

If you are thinking about emailing me, the best version of that email usually comes after you have done a little homework first.

Read a few things. Go to a talk. Figure out what question or domain you care about. Then send a thoughtful note.

That usually leads to a much better conversation for both of us.

Last updated: April 23, 2026.