SoTS Princeton Research Labs

Princeton Research Labs are the research component of the SoTS Physics Lyceum.

Weekly sessions are working research meetings, not lectures. Each student learns the field, identifies what is not known, defines a researchable question, chooses an approach, gathers or produces evidence, analyzes it, and presents what the evidence does and does not show.

Students do this individual work inside a research group of up to five, guided by a researcher-educator. The question and substantive work belong to the student; the guide makes expert research moves visible, coaches the process, and gradually removes support as the student becomes more independent.

Prior research experience is not required. Students do need to take responsibility for making progress between sessions, bringing work in progress to the group, and responding seriously to questions and critique.

• Find the question: Learn enough about the field to separate what is already known from a question that is meaningful, unanswered, and workable.
• Choose the method: Decide whether the question calls for experiment, observation, data analysis, simulation, theory, or a combination.
• Do the work: Research, experiments, coding, writing, and analysis happen between meetings. The student, not the guide, carries the project.
• Make progress visible: Present decisions, evidence, dead ends, and unresolved problems to the group while the work is still developing.
• Respond to critique: Explain and defend an approach, review other students' reasoning, and revise the work when a question exposes a weakness.
• Report the result honestly: There is no answer key and no promised outcome. A negative, ambiguous, or incomplete result still has to be interpreted carefully.

More on methodology: The Research Guide: From Informal Role to Profession, Samsonau & Pearce, arXiv:2604.19961 (2026)

Every student owns an original project: a distinct research question, substantive decisions, and responsibility for the evidence and conclusions.

Students bring unfinished ideas into the group, challenge assumptions, review one another’s methods, and defend their decisions. They learn from approaches that fail and see several different investigations develop alongside their own. This is cross-pollination: a question, method, or unexpected result from one project can open a new direction in another.

The lab director guides every project. The group gives each student experience working inside a research community: contributing to other investigations, responding to criticism, and deciding which ideas to carry into their own work.

Groups of up to five are an intentional part of this method. Each student follows one project deeply while participating in the thinking behind several others. Individual scientific guidance and cross-pollination work together throughout the research process.

What makes student research authentic?

Research Labs are selective, in both in-person and hybrid formats. First, pass the membership fit evaluation, a conversation about whether you and SoTS are right for each other. Once accepted as a SoTS member, you can request to join a lab, subject to its prerequisites and available places. Membership acceptance does not guarantee a place in a particular lab.

Membership means joining the Society of Teen Scientists, a community where young researchers share their work and receive feedback. Members maintain their membership through research activity, reviewed annually.

Same labs, same research cycle, different formats. Every one of them is a full semester commitment. In Summer, groups meet twice a week for 8 weeks: the same 16 sessions as a Fall or Spring semester, at the same tuition.

Complete a semester in good standing (attend at least 75% of sessions, demonstrate satisfactory progress) and earn a physical Certificate of Research Training. Summer students must attend at least 50% of sessions in person.

The certificate confirms training in authentic research, an original project, and completion of a semester-long lab program. Signed by your lab director and the Academic Director of SoTS. May include a QR code linking to your Research Profile.

See Certificates and Transcripts for how this certificate sits alongside Lyceum course certificates and the transcript.