Discover is an innovative, personalized, one-on-one virtual research mentorship program for high-school students across the globe. Students are matched to our mentors, who range from Professors and Lecturers to PhD candidates at top global universities pursuing cutting-edge research in their field.
With our structured program, students will be immersed in 10-15 bi-weekly sessions with their mentor, learning the essentials of (social) science research, settling on a topic of choice, working to access open source data, performing a literature review, and ultimately authoring a report summarizing your findings in a specialized area of scholarship.
Some popular disciplinary specializations:

Discover Participant

“In summer 2022, I worked as a Research Assistant to a PhD candidate and research scientist at CERN on ‘Predicting the process that causes SMW-boson production in the single-lepton final state’. In the course of my engagement, I engaged in intensive quantitative research, performed literature reviews, and assessed gaps in existing scholarship in the field. Ultimately, I authored a report summarizing my findings, which I submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, after receiving feedback from my mentor.”

Our Programs

Discover involves different research offerings, which are available to high-school and undergraduate students across the globe. All our mentorship engagements are virtual. 

Meet Some of Our Mentors

Kanika Ahuja

HONORARY MENTOR

Dr. Kanika K. Ahuja is a Professor of Psychology at Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi. With over 24 years of experience, she specialises in Industrial/Organisational psychology, gender issues, diversity and inclusion, and psychometry. Dr. Ahuja has published articles in leading journals, authored and co-edited books, conducted workshops for schools and corporates, and delivered a TED-X talk.

Utkarsh Agrawal

MENTOR

Utkarsh Agrawal works as a Research Fellow at University of Oxford. He graduated with a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Nottingham. He loves to talk and write about the use of data in healthcare.

Suvam Maharana

MENTOR

Suvam Maharana is a particle physicist based in Delhi, India, who is currently pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of Delhi. When he is not immersed in exploring the origins of visible and invisible matter in the universe, Suvam tries his hand at photography to capture reality as it is.

Sukanya Sinha

MENTOR

Dr. Sukanya Sinha is a Postdoctoral researcher in University of Manchester, United Kingdom, and a member of the ATLAS experiment, CERN, Switzerland. Her primary research interests span the experimental and phenomenological aspects of dark matter and strongly interacting dark sector. She pioneered the search for strongly interacting dark matter and produced the first experimental results, setting the strongest constraint on this scenario, from the largest physics dataset ever collected at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

Jo Krishnakumar

MENTOR

Jo Krishnakumar (they/them) is a doctoral researcher in Anthropology and Sociology at SOAS, University of London, and a Junior Fellow at the Center for Applied Transgender Studies (CATS). Their PhD project focuses on documentary films, sex work and gentrification in South India, and is aligned with the advocacy they are involved in on-ground. They view research as one of the many ways they can add to the movements that they are a part of. Jo runs two independent projects; Almaarii, which is a visual ethnography of the ‘closet’ in South Asia and Trans/form, a project on understanding anti-trans violence in India.

Cledwyn Fernandez

MENTOR

Cledwyn Fernandez is currently a policy consultant at ICRIER, a public policy think tank based out of Delhi. He has a Ph.D. in Economics from XLRI Jamshedpur. He was an Assistant Professor of Economics at TA Pai Management Institute, Manipal. His areas of interest are microeconomics, macroeconomics, development economics, public private partnership & infrastructure development, public policy, and industrial economics.

Vishruth Venkataraman

MENTOR

Vishruth Venkat is a PhD student in the Organismal Biology and Anatomy department at the University of Chicago. He holds an MSc in Palaeobiology from the University of Bristol and a bachelor’s degree in Integrative Biology and South Asian studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Vish’s research involves studying the evolution of complex sensory systems and nerves in animals, as well as their development from embryos, using a combination of genetics, microscopy, CT scanning, and palaeontology. Besides his work, he is passionate about the history and philosophy of science, especially in South Asia, and the connection between science, society, and religion.

Louise Courbin

MENTOR

Louise is a part-time PhD Candidate in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Her current research focuses on the production and reproduction of knowledge within academia and political institutions in France since 1962. Her research interests combine critical theorisation of knowledge, comparative study of peace and conflict strategies, border conflict and cooperation, and the (re)production of narratives in academic and political institutions. She graduated Sciences app Strasbourg with a BA in Political and International Affairs, and two MA, in Border Studies and International and European Studies.

Tarika Khattar

MENTOR

Tarika Khattar is a PhD Candidate in History at the University of Cambridge. Her research explores the evolution of the Kashmir conflict during the Cold War. Her teaching and research interests lie in three main areas: global anti-imperialism, postcolonial state-building, and the interplay between the national and the international, particularly the impact of domestic politics on foreign policy. Tarika holds a BA in History with Honours from the University of Chicago and an MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies from the University of Cambridge.

Nasema Zeerak

MENTOR

Nasema is a doctoral student in International Policy at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota. Her educational background includes an MSc. in Conflict Management and Resolution from the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego, as well as a Master of Public Administration from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. Her research interests include anti-colonial and anti-imperial thought, international relations theory, the politics of knowledge production, and political violence. An overarching theme that drives her current research is the ways that coloniality and power are silenced and disavowed in processes of knowledge production. Exploring how such political erasure impacts how people live and understand political violence is what interests her majorly.

Dhouha Djerbi

MENTOR

Dhouha is a PhD researcher at the Geneva Graduate Institute and an affiliate with its Gender Centre. She has a Master of Public Policy from the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin (cum laude) and a B.A. in Gender, Sexuality and Society and Psychology (summa cum laude). Dhouha is currently affiliated with the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Centre for Maghreb Studies in Tunis as a research fellow. Dhouha’s research explores gendered labour relations with the context of agrarian transformations and rural movements in postrevolutionary Tunisia. Her focus encompasses feminized and embodied labour, social reproduction, and the shifts in the gendered division of labour in contentious contexts. Her research methodology is deeply rooted in ethnographic principles, often involving hands-on experiences working on various farms across diverse regions of Tunisia.

Achievements Spotlight

IRIS National Fair

Our exceptional students have achieved noteworthy recognition on national platforms. Several of our talented individuals have emerged as finalists in the prestigious IRIS National Fair, showcasing their dedication to scientific inquiry and innovation.

ST Yau High School Science Award

Our students have also demonstrated outstanding prowess in exploring and pushing the boundaries of scientific discovery, earning them the esteemed distinction of being qualifiers for the ST Yau High School Science Award.

FAQs

About the Program

Discover’s Research Projects are systematic and organised academic projects that focus on a specific area of specialisation, involving both primary and secondary research (data analysis and/or literature review). These projects are designed to explore the frontiers of an academic domain and often result in a standard 6-part research paper or report. Research projects are either Independent (without mentored sessions, purely secondary research) or Mentored (with mentored sessions and significant feedback).

Eligibility

Individuals who are currently enrolled in high school (Grades 9, 10, 11, and 12) and have a strong desire to explore research within a specific academic field are eligible to apply. Students are welcome to apply regardless of their country of study or residence, with no limitation on nationality.

Yes, international students are eligible to apply.

Certainly! Kindly fill out our Interest Form and indicate your availability. Once received, we will review it and inform you whether your preferred time frame is feasible or not.

Certainly! Kindly fill out our Interest Form and indicate your availability. Once received, we will review it and inform you whether your preferred time frame is feasible or not.

Finances

Outcomes

We intend for the Discover Research Program to result in significant secondary (and where applicable, primary) research, the completion of a 10–15 page collated research report, a letter of acknowledgement/recommendation from the mentor upon successful completion, a certificate of completion, and publication support attempts to 2-3 student appropriate journals, fairs, or other outlets.

Although we cannot provide a guarantee that every paper will be published, we make sure to put in our best effort to submit our students’ work to journals, outlets, and fairs that accept submissions from high school students. This way, we ensure that their time and effort are recognized and rewarded.

By enrolling in the mentored Discover Research Program, students are provided a Letter of Recommendation from the mentor they work with upon the successful completion of their program. We understand the disparities faced by students in application and admissions processes that make recommendation letters a necessity rather than a privilege, and our Mentors are aware of these requirements. However, the level of detail and the information in the letters are entirely contingent upon the student’s level of performance.

How many sessions will I have to complete in order to get a Letter of Recommendation from the Mentor?

Contact Us

discover@essai.in 

If you are an academic who is interested in mentoring students with us, please refer to the recruitment page here.