About
The Aspiring Scholars Directed Research Program (ASDRP) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research and development institution where high school students conduct original research in STEM and interdisciplinary fields. Students take part in weekly public Colloquia seminars, Research 101 seminars, and work on projects such as developing novel therapies against cancer, using data science to understand the impact of climate change on society, synthesizing the next generation of antibiotics, developing machine learning platforms for drug discovery, understanding mechanisms of memory acquisition, and probing the universe for ultrafast radio burst signals. They also write research papers, participate in mock peer-review, publish in the ASDRP Communications online journal, and share their work through poster presentations at an end-of-summer expo, as well as publishing and presenting in peer-reviewed journals and conferences.
• Ages: 14–18 years old
• Schedule: Research is typically conducted in the evenings and weekends, with autumn, spring, and summer terms running from early September through late August.
• Price: Program cost for summer ranges from $0–$1070, with no cost for students who meet financial need eligibility criteria, and the program cost for the 2025–2026 school year research term is $1070.
ASDRP began with its inaugural cohort in summer 2018 and performs research year-round. It is run by a consortium of highly skilled scientists, engineers, and researchers with years of academic and industry experience, and research is supervised by research faculty clustered under three departments: Biological/Human/Life Sciences; Chemistry/Biochemistry/Physics; and Computer Science & Engineering. ASDRP provides students with over $4 million worth of research equipment in its research laboratory and offers specialty courses such as Machine Learning, Organic Chemistry, and MatLab at no additional cost to accepted students.
ASDRP’s mission is to provide high school students throughout the Bay Area, especially those who are underrepresented in STEM or who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, with the chance to conduct high-level novel scientific research, while producing state-of-the-art research year round and serving the diverse community in which it is located. The program mentors high school students in 9th through 12th grade from the greater Bay Area, across the United States, and around the world, and applications for summer research are open to rising 9th–12th graders, while school year research is open to current 9th–12th graders around the Bay Area. ASDRP is a production of Olive Children Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Fremont, California, and each year it awards several partial and full scholarships for students from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue STEM research.
Last updated March 20, 2026.
• Ages: 14–18 years old
• Schedule: Research is typically conducted in the evenings and weekends, with autumn, spring, and summer terms running from early September through late August.
• Price: Program cost for summer ranges from $0–$1070, with no cost for students who meet financial need eligibility criteria, and the program cost for the 2025–2026 school year research term is $1070.
ASDRP began with its inaugural cohort in summer 2018 and performs research year-round. It is run by a consortium of highly skilled scientists, engineers, and researchers with years of academic and industry experience, and research is supervised by research faculty clustered under three departments: Biological/Human/Life Sciences; Chemistry/Biochemistry/Physics; and Computer Science & Engineering. ASDRP provides students with over $4 million worth of research equipment in its research laboratory and offers specialty courses such as Machine Learning, Organic Chemistry, and MatLab at no additional cost to accepted students.
ASDRP’s mission is to provide high school students throughout the Bay Area, especially those who are underrepresented in STEM or who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, with the chance to conduct high-level novel scientific research, while producing state-of-the-art research year round and serving the diverse community in which it is located. The program mentors high school students in 9th through 12th grade from the greater Bay Area, across the United States, and around the world, and applications for summer research are open to rising 9th–12th graders, while school year research is open to current 9th–12th graders around the Bay Area. ASDRP is a production of Olive Children Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Fremont, California, and each year it awards several partial and full scholarships for students from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue STEM research.
Last updated March 20, 2026.
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