DUIRI is now accepting fall faculty project proposals

Purdue faculty at the West Lafayette and Indianapolis locations are invited to submit project proposals for the Discovery Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Research Internship (DUIRI) Fall 2026 session. DUIRI supports faculty-led undergraduate research teams tackling problems across the strategic areas of global security, global health and global sustainability.

Project proposals must span two or more distinct academic disciplines — represented by faculty from different departments and, ideally, different colleges. Each student who meets all program requirements will earn a fellowship award of $1,000 at the end of the session. Faculty across all disciplines are encouraged to apply.

Key dates

• Session dates: Aug. 24-Dec. 12
• Faculty project proposal window: May 11-June 12
• Student application window: June 29-July 17

Special focus: Cybersecurity and CERIAS partnership

This cycle, DUIRI is actively seeking faculty proposals in the cybersecurity domain. Projects submitted in cybersecurity and related areas will be supported by the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS) at Purdue. Faculty submitting proposals that align with CERIAS research focus areas will receive priority consideration during the project short-listing process.

CERIAS research areas of interest include, but are not limited to, network and system security, privacy and data protection, AI and machine learning security, critical infrastructure protection, cyberpolicy, and human factors in cybersecurity.

DUIRI and Institute for a Sustainable Future partnership

This fall, select DUIRI projects will be cofunded by Purdue’s Institute for a Sustainable Future (ISF). These interdisciplinary projects promote collaborative sustainability research in areas such as water challenges, environmental stressors, climate science, environmental justice, renewable energy and sustainable communities. Projects supported by ISF will have “ISF” included in their titles, and students selected for these roles will have opportunities to connect further with ISF initiatives. Faculty actively engaged with ISF research areas are encouraged to indicate this alignment in their proposals and will receive priority consideration accordingly.

Past DUIRI projects with cybersecurity alignment

The following examples illustrate the range of cybersecurity-adjacent work DUIRI has supported across recent sessions:

• “Cybersecurity Risks of Freight Rail as Critical Infrastructure” (Fall 2025)
• “Identifying Vulnerabilities in Infrared Range Finders for Transportation Systems” (Spring 2026)
• “Zero-shot Machine Unlearning on Tabular Data” (data privacy/AI security) (Spring 2026)
• “Opportunities and Risks of Biometric Security in the Age of Generative AI” (Spring 2025 and Fall 2024)
• “Assessing Impact of Online Activists and Vigilantes on Public Perceptions of Cyber Crime” (Spring 2025)
• “Watch Your Phone Calls: Inference Attacks Over Encrypted 5G Calls” (Spring 2024)
• “Toward Prediction of a User’s Identity from Missing IoT Biometric Data” (Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023)
• “Empowering Older Adult Caregivers Against Online Financial Scams” (social engineering/cyberfraud) (Summer 2025)
• “Transforming Patient Health Information Exchange With Blockchain Technology” (data security in health) (Spring 2023)
• “Control My News Feed: Exploring How End Users Interact With Social Media Recommendation Systems” (information security / manipulation) (Spring 2023)

How to submit a proposal

Faculty can submit project proposals via the DUIRI website using their Purdue career account credentials.

All proposals must clearly explain why the proposed project fits within one of DUIRI’s three strategic areas (global health, global security or global sustainability). Proposals should not reference or frame their work around research areas outside of these three strategic domains.

Submit proposals here.

Contact

Faculty with inquiries can contact Peter Bermel at pbermel@purdue.edu.

Student inquiries can be directed to DUIRI at duiri@purdue.edu or pramanna@purdue.edu.