2026 George A. Jeffries NanoExplorers Summer Research Program

The George A. Jeffries NanoExplorers program at UT Dallas is a non-residential summer program that promotes STEM-based education for high school students. The goal of the program is to inspire high school students to become productive scientists and engineers by enabling them to do original research work. Once admitted into the program. As much as possible, the students are treated like any other member of the lab and the work they do is associated with actual research programs of the mentor. Leveraging their accomplishments as NanoExplorers, these students have gone on to the highest ranked universities in our nation and have entered UTD as prestigious McDermott Scholars. They have presented their work at international conferences, coauthored seminal publications that receive national and international news coverage, and have had their work featured in Science and Nature magazines – the highest impact journals in the world. Since the program’s inception in 2002, over 600 students have gained their first real laboratory experience in UTD laboratories. Students participating in this program have been extremely successful in winning international scholarships and awards based on research carried out during the program. Since the institute started tracking the success of the participants in 2006, over 100 awards and scholarships in international competitions (Intel, Siemens, etc.) have been awarded to NanoExplorers.