What's WRI 270/271 about?

“No one is dumb who is curious. The people who don’t ask questions remain clueless throughout their lives.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson

Great scientific discoveries start by posing great questions. Ecologists and evolutionary biologists inquire about the adaptation and functioning of organisms and ecosystems. Chemists, geologists, and environmental scientists investigate the makeup of the natural world over time and space. Medical doctors and psychologists ask about all parts of the human health experience, from visible symptoms to invisible electrical interactions. But how do scientists and engineers in fields as distinctive as neuroscience and physics move from established textbook explanations to innovative scientific questions, and from innovative questions to original discoveries? And how might a student researcher convincingly connect the humble work of basic science—focused on a single species, a specific algorithm, a unique microbe, or an individual molecule—to broader and bolder impacts?

This sophomore seminar invites students to hone the interrogative skills which drive scientific progress, equipping them with the expertise, confidence, and critical thinking strategies necessary for discovery and innovation. In the fall, we learn to ask big questions by diving into path-breaking recent publications from Princeton’s STEM labs, placing those results in dialogue with work from other, relevant fields (including the humanities and social sciences), and creatively applying our knowledge to today’s biggest problems—climate change, food insecurity, global pandemics, and more. In the spring, we transform those ambitions into smaller, more manageable questions that can be answered within a single STEM project, working with publicly available data to discover the opportunities and limits of a single dataset firsthand, and learning the storytelling and visualization skills that make research more accessible and fun. The goal of this sophomore seminar is for you to walk into your departmental independent work with stronger research skills and an understanding of how even the smallest research project can work toward a significant broader impact. 

A prospective astrophysicist might read deeply in developmental psychology to create a science module for elementary school children about the Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler. A neuroscience student pursuing a global health minor could synthesize recent scholarship about the gut-brain axis and local agriculture markets to craft a data-driven policy brief for a Food Policy Council near home. An ORFE major could apply game theory to a publicly available nuclear fusion dataset, then embed their results into a science fiction inspired role-playing game. And an aspiring evolutionary or molecular biologist excited about social media analysis could use computational tools to create—and creatively visualize—a dataset from Instagram posts about environmental activism.  All students interested in becoming more curious scholars and scientists are welcome, including humanities and social science majors, too!

How do the schedule and assignments work?

“The Curious Scientist” operates on a year-long, half-time schedule. The course meets for one 80-minute block each week (instead of the standard two) and holds six 50-minute precepts each semester (instead of the standard twelve). For Fall 2025 and Spring 2026, WRI 270/271 will hold regular seminar meetings on Tuesdays from 10:40 a.m. - 12:00 p.m., and precepts will be organized around student availability at the start of the fall term.  

Short, weekly assignments comprise 50% of each student’s final course grade and are organized around research skills relevant to their individual project and intellectual goals. Those smaller assignments are also the building blocks of each semester’s summative assignment (each contributing 15% to each student’s final grade) and the inspiration for each semester’s concluding exercise (each contributing 5%)—about how their research experiences and learning might transfer to other courses and contexts. 

What else should I know?

Like all sophomore research seminars housed in the Writing Program, this course will include sessions on obtaining undergraduate research funding, building a research network at Princeton (and beyond!), balancing professional ambition with personal wellbeing, cultivating a supportive peer writing community, and sharing research findings effectively in public-facing genres. 

For more information, review the Registrar’s listing for WRI 270/271 (coming soon).