How to Get a Research Role: Finding Research That Interests You

One common piece of advice for students looking for research is: find a PI whose research interests you. That sounds fine until you are early in your science courses and almost everything sounds interesting because you do not know enough yet to know what you like.

How are you supposed to decide whether you are interested in a lab studying a signaling pathway you have never heard of? And how are you supposed to write an email explaining your interest when you barely understand the abstract? The good news is that you don’t need to have your research interests figured out before you start doing research! In my experience, actually doing research is one of the best ways to figure this out.

Start With Curiosity, Not a Perfect Research Niche

When I first started looking for research positions, I had taken introductory neuroscience courses and knew I was interested in how neural mechanisms link to behavior. I thought gene editing technologies we covered in class were cool. I was interested in schizophrenia and psychosis. I wanted benchwork experience and thought it would also be exciting to work with brain tissue. That was about as specific as it got.

Just as important, there were also a few things I knew I didn't want. I was comfortable working with animal models like mice, for example, but I did not particularly want to work with fish or flies. I also didn’t want to study something like the effect of a drug on a population – I was more interested in studies aiming to uncover how neural circuits work fundamentally than how an intervention changed that biology. 

The first lab I joined was studying how aging affects dopaminergic signaling to memory systems. It was a mouse lab where I spent a lot of time slicing and staining brains, and then imaging and quantifying the stained signal. That work did not end up being what I wanted to pursue, but it taught me an enormous amount. I learned bench techniques, how to read scientific literature critically, how to think through a research question and design an experiment, and, for one lab, what doing research actually looked like. I learned that my favorite part was the intellectual exercise of thinking through research questions and design. Just as important, I learned I didn’t like working with animal models and that while I enjoyed basic science research, I was eager to do research that had a more direct impact on population health. My interests developed and sharpened because I started doing the work.

So if several areas sound interesting to you right now, I would argue that is a good problem to have. You do not need to pick the research topic you will study for the rest of your career. You just need to find something that makes you curious enough to learn more.

Pay Attention to More Than the Topic

When we think about research interests, we often focus on subject matter:

Do I like neuroscience? Cancer biology? Cardiology? Infectious disease?

But there are many other dimensions of research that can help you narrow things down.

Ask yourself:

• What level of research interests me? Molecules and cells? Organs and biological systems? Individual patients? Communities? Entire healthcare systems?

• Who or what do I want to work with? Cells, animals, patients, medical records, large datasets, clinicians, or communities?

• Do I like hands-on laboratory work? If you enjoy experiments, procedures, chemistry, microscopy, or working at the bench, basic or translational science might appeal to you.

• Do I like working with people? Clinical, qualitative, implementation, or health services research may involve much more interaction with patients, clinicians, or communities.

• Do I like numbers and data? Epidemiology, computational biology, biostatistics, imaging, and many types of health services research can be highly quantitative.

• Do I like interviews, experiences, and stories? Qualitative research might be worth exploring.

• Do I want to understand why something happens, or whether something works in the real world? Those questions can lead you toward very different kinds of research.

• Am I interested in a particular disease, population, question, or method? Any one of those can be your entry point.

You also do not have to know the names of these fields yet. You might just know that you find memory fascinating. Or that you care about mental health. Or that you like coding. Or that you would rather spend your afternoon interviewing patients than pipetting. Those are all useful clues.

Get Exposure Before You Decide

The easiest way to develop research interests is to expose yourself to more research. I would start with your classes. Which lectures make you want to keep reading after class? Which topics make you ask another question? Then look beyond the courses you have already taken.

Something I found really useful was going to my university’s course catalog and reading the descriptions of upper-division classes. If you could be in college for another 5 years, which ones would you choose? Which ones would you skip? Again, identifying what you don’t feel as passionately about is just as important information as what you do. 

You can also:

• Read popular science books.

  • Goodreads medicine booklist: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/medicine

  • Goodreads science booklist: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/science

• Skim articles in top journals (NEJM, JAMA, Nature, The Lancet).

• Watch TED Talks or scientific lectures online.

• Attend departmental seminars or research talks at nearby universities.

• Look for medical school or hospital grand rounds that are open to students or the public.

• Attend student research symposia.

• Watch webinars hosted by universities, hospitals, scientific organizations, or research institutes.

• Ask professors how they became interested in their own field.

You do not need to understand everything you read or hear. One way I tested myself was asking: How much do I want to keep going? If an article is difficult but you find yourself curious enough to push through it, that tells you something. If you are five minutes in and desperately want to read anything else, that also tells you something.

Your Interests Will Probably Change

My interests have grown and evolved over time, and I expect that to continue. Alongside neuroscience, I studied human rights in college and spent a lot of time doing health, wellness, and mental health advocacy. Over time, I saw a natural intersection in research studying how systems, environments, and care structures influence individual and population health. After college, I started working in health policy, and my interests continued sharpening toward mental health and health services research.

Even with these focalizing interests, my research has been all over the map. I have worked on projects involving:

• Service delivery innovation for people with co-occurring mental health and substance use conditions

• Quality of care for people with serious mental illness

• Measures and metrics for evaluating the military’s sexual harassment and assault response program

• Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty 

• Health civic engagement

• Qualitative research on the relationship between hazing and sexual violence in university fraternities

• Across diverse study designs and methodological approaches, including randomized controlled trials, observational cohort studies, implementation research, mixed-methods studies, qualitative and quantitative analyses, secondary-data analyses, and evidence synthesis

I say this to underscore the value of breadth as a student interested in research. You do not need to find your “perfect” research niche from the outset, and experiences that fall outside of your ideal area can still be incredibly valuable, and may surprise you in how they shape your interest and work down the line. Not all of these projects were a 100% match with my interests, but each has been integral to my development as a researcher. Each has taught me something about the questions I care about, the methods I enjoy, the way I like to work, and the kind of work I want to keep doing. 

Once You Have a Few Interests, Find the People

Once you have two or three general directions you would be excited to explore, you can start looking for researchers. I would start with universities, academic medical centers, hospitals, and research institutes near you. Then you can work backward:

University → Department → Faculty → Lab → Recent research

If you are interested in neuroscience, for example, do not only look for a department literally called “Neuroscience.” Relevant researchers might sit in psychiatry, neurology, psychology, pharmacology, biology, genetics, or another department entirely. Then, open the faculty directory and start clicking.

I found faculty profiles are a very good first filter, because you will probably have some reaction when you read them. You might think, “wait, this is really cool,” or “meh.” That gut reaction is literally enough to start narrowing the list. When I was looking, my university also had a list of researchers previous students had worked with, which gave me another starting point. If your school has a pre-health office, research office, honors program, or science department, it is worth asking whether something similar exists.

You Do Not Need to Read Every Paper

Once you find a lab that looks promising, visit the lab website and look at a few recent publications. But do not spend three hours trying to become an expert before sending one cold email. When I was reaching out, I generally looked at the lab website and skimmed a few recent papers. I might read:

• The abstract

• The last paragraph of the introduction (usually where the author lays out their plan for the paper)

• The figures

• The conclusion or discussion

I was trying to answer a few basic questions:

1. What is this lab generally studying?

2. What methods are they using?

3. What have they been working on recently? (e.g., what grants seem currently active and likely to be projects they are working on now?)

I absolutely did not understand everything. You are not expected to - you are a student! If you can get to the point where you understand, “This group is broadly trying to understand X using Y approach, and I think that sounds interesting because Z,” you probably know enough to decide whether the lab belongs on your outreach list. 

Let One Researcher Lead You to the Next

Once you find one researcher you like, you can also use them to expand your search.

Look at:

• Their collaborators

• Their recent coauthors

• Other faculty in their center or department

• Researchers cited on their lab website

• Related labs at the same institution

Research is collaborative, so one interesting lab will often lead you to an entire network of researchers working on related questions. AI can also be useful here. You might tell an AI tool:

“I live near these three universities and I'm interested in [X topic], [Y topic], and [Z method]. What departments or research areas should I search? Are there any specific researchers you would recommend looking into that align with these interests?”

You can also use AI to help translate an intimidating abstract into plain English. Just verify the actual researchers, positions, and research areas on their official university or lab websites. Use AI to make your search faster, not as the final source of truth.

You’ll Figure It Out as You Go

Your first research experience does not need to perfectly match the research you eventually pursue. I don’t know many people whose first research projects did. The point of starting early is that you have time to explore. You discover not only what you like, but also what you do not like. You’ll likely have a new wealth of knowledge about yourself and your interests after even one research experience. 

You may discover that you love bench science. You may discover that you never want to pipette again. You may start in molecular neuroscience and eventually become interested in health policy. You may discover a research method you love that you did not even know existed.

All of it is information, and you do not need to know enough about science to choose your lifelong research field. You just need enough curiosity to choose the next thing you want to learn more about.

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