Research in philosophy is not organized as it is in the sciences, where a single primary investigator oversees and coordinates the work of many different members of a team, from other professors to post-docs to graduate students working on their Ph.D. to undergraduates. Instead, each philosopher's research is fairly self-contained. We share our work in progress with our peers to get feedback and develop our work, of course, but most philosophers don't have researchers doing their own research as part of a larger project.
That means that research opportunities for undergraduates usually take the form of finding funding to spend the summer learning about a topic and writing about it, perhaps in the context of a summer research program or a summer school. Some of these programs are Harvard Internal, some are more broadly based.
Harvard Programs
- SHARP: Summer Humanities and Arts Research Program
- The Harvard Review of Philosophy edits and discusses the articles it considers for publication in its yearly issue. This is a great opportunity to read and discuss philosophy.
- Harvard College Research Funding
- The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program. MMUF exists to counter the underrepresentation of marginalized groups on college and university faculties nationwide through activities designed to encourage the pursuit of the Ph.D. in the humanities and social sciences (from the website).
- Harvard-Cambridge Scholarship summer program. Offers summer scholarships for study in Cambridge, UK.
Other Programs
The programs outside of Harvard are constantly changing, so instead of giving you a list of programs, here are resources that continually update.
- Diversity Institutes: There are various summer programs designed for students from traditionally underrepresented groups.
- Over the course of the academic year, there are round-ups of philosophy summer programs. Daily Nous, a philosophy blog, often has these.