Ohio State · College of Engineering
Find research. Signal interest. Apply with structure.
A marketplace for OSU engineering students and faculty — centralized discovery, low-friction intent, and auditable matching in one place.
Faculty
Find researchers across every engineering department. Filter by topic, read their work, and see how they take on students.
BrowseProjects & Labs
Browse active labs and standing projects looking for student contributors — with scope, skills, and commitment laid out up front.
BrowseOpportunities
Open postings for paid, credit, and volunteer research positions — each with requirements, term, and application mode listed.
BrowseHow it works
For students
01
Browse
Filter faculty, labs, and open postings by research topic, department, and commitment type — no cold email required.
02
Signal interest
Leave a low-commitment note on a profile or project. Faculty see the full queue in one inbox, not buried in email.
03
Apply with structure
Submit profile-backed applications and track status from new through interview to matched — both sides see the same pipeline.
For faculty
01
Post
Publish in minutes with posting templates and a curated question bank. Structured fields — topics, skills, term, commitment — help the right students find you.
02
Review
Interest signals and applications land in one inbox with profile-backed snapshots you can triage at a glance.
03
Match
Move candidates through screening, interview, and offer. Declines require a structured reason — no ghosting, full audit trail.
Why this exists
Built for how research actually gets assigned.
Research placement at universities is fragmented, opaque, and biased toward students with existing social capital. ResearchConnect is a deliberate push against that.
Structured over freeform
Tags, dropdowns, and templates replace open text — so searches return what they should and nothing drifts into the void.
Transparency without noise
Students see real pipeline status, not internal deliberations. Everyone sees the same state at the same time.
Low-friction signaling
Interest before application. One click tells a lab you're paying attention — before anyone writes a cover letter.
Exploration has value
Profiles are first-class. Browsing a lab's work is worthwhile on its own, even before a posting opens.