Perhaps you’re a Colorado high schooler who wants research experience, but you’re not sure where to start. Research programs for high school students in Colorado have expanded well beyond the local science fair, from federal labs in Boulder to fully virtual, one-on-one options open to any student in the state. The challenge isn’t finding an opportunity; it’s figuring out which one actually matches your interest, your schedule, and your comfort level, whether you want to build research skills or explore a future research career.
This guide breaks down 12 research programs for high school students in Colorado, what each one actually involves, and how to evaluate them so you can choose with confidence.
The highest quality research programs for high school students fall into two categories:
The strongest programs tend to share two qualities: a high degree of student agency in shaping the research direction, and meaningful institutional oversight that ensures academic rigor. Programs run by universities, government bodies, and established non-profits typically possess these qualities, giving students the closest approximation to what college-level research actually looks like, making the experience valuable college preparation.
The programs below were selected based on:
The NIST Summer High School Intern Program places students directly in NIST’s Boulder laboratories, where they work with professional scientists and engineers on the agency’s own research problems. Students carry out their own mentored research project rather than simply observing a lab in operation, and past projects have ranged from spectroscopy to robotics.
Because NIST is a federal research institution rather than a university, the oversight and rigor come from working alongside full-time government scientists rather than university faculty.
At the Pioneer Research Institute, high school students complete original, college-level research one-on-one with a university professor. The program culminates in a formal research paper rather than a fixed course curriculum. Because the Research Institute is fully virtual, it’s open to any Colorado student as well as international applicants regardless of proximity to Boulder, Denver, or Colorado Springs, and it spans disciplines from the sciences to the humanities.
To learn more about Pioneer, including its acceptance rate and application requirements, read our comprehensive guide to the program.
MIT PRIMES-USA is a year-long, fully remote research track for students with exceptional strength in mathematics, run through MIT’s Department of Mathematics. Admission is based on demonstrated mathematical ability, potential for original research, and self-motivation, with applicants expected to have substantial prior knowledge of mathematics. Admitted students spend the year working through mentor-guided, open-ended math research before presenting their research and completing a final paper.
For a full breakdown of the program’s phases, eligibility, and application strategy, see our MIT PRIMES-USA participation guide.
The AFRL Scholars Program places students at the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Catalyst Campus in Colorado Springs, where they work alongside full-time AFRL scientists and engineers on active research and technology projects.
The program is administered by the Universities Space Research Association, a non-profit research consortium, and it’s one of the few paid research options on this list. Because the internship requires a background check and some projects may require a security clearance, students should be prepared for additional screening after selection.
CS@Mines places students directly with a Colorado School of Mines computer science faculty member to contribute to an active research project in areas such as artificial intelligence, robotics, or cybersecurity.
Unlike many summer programs, this is a genuine research internship, with paid scholarship opportunities available, rather than a structured curriculum, and students work as part of Mines faculty research teams on real, ongoing projects.
Hosted jointly by Children’s Hospital Colorado and the University of Colorado School of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics, this internship gives students hands-on experience in biomedical research, placing Colorado high school seniors directly into a pediatrics faculty lab on the Anschutz Medical Campus.
Interns attend weekly research seminars, contribute to an active child health research project, and close the summer with a written summary and an oral or poster presentation of their work, mirroring how early-career researchers present findings.
RMBL’s Introduction to Field Biology course, run by the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, teaches students to conduct original biological research in the field rather than in a traditional lab. Working individually or in small groups, students design their own research question on topics like pollination, stream ecology, or animal behavior, using the same GPS units, GIS software, and other scientific equipment available at RMBL.
CU Boulder’s STEM Research Experience allows pairs of students to work with a CU Boulder or CU Anschutz research mentor based on research interest, as students explore fields in STEM spanning from aerospace engineering to neuroscience.
Students spend 15 to 20 hours each week of their research, attend a weekly research methods seminar, and close the program by presenting a professional research poster at a culminating expo.
Running since 1959, the Frontiers of Science Institute is a residential program where students live on the University of Northern Colorado campus, take college-style seminars, and complete a mentored research project that culminates in a scientific talk, poster presentation, and final research summary. Its residential structure offers a taste of college life, while scholarship support makes it a more accessible full-immersion research option.
The Denver Museum of Nature & Science’s Teen Science Scholars program places a small cohort of students directly into its curatorial team, working on real fossil collections from the Denver Basin. Students learn to identify, collect, and catalog specimens in the field and lab, contributing to the museum’s actual research collection rather than a simulated project.
Hosted by Colorado State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences, the Colorado GROW Youth Institute asks students to research and write a paper on a global food security challenge before joining a daylong summit with policy experts and researchers.
Top participants can go on to represent Colorado at the World Food Prize Foundation’s national Global Youth Institute, making this one of the more accessible entry points into research writing for underclassmen. Students will need to find their own mentor and conduct their own research prior to presentation at the GROW Youth Institute.
CU Boulder’s DEL Lab has historically offered in-lab shadowing positions in cognition, development, and learning. Participants assist with experiments, gain exposure to data collection and analysis, and learn how psychological research is conducted under the guidance of experienced researchers. The lab’s broader work uses methods ranging from behavioral experiments and eye tracking to computational modeling to study how children and adults learn.
As of summer 2026, the lab is not accepting new high school shadowing students, although CU Boulder notes that availability may change each semester. Students interested in a future placement should check the lab’s site before planning around it.
With this many formats — federal labs, university seminars, museum internships, and fully virtual programs — the right choice depends less on prestige alone and more on fit. Start by asking whether you prefer programs where students research and develop their own projects from start to finish, like at Pioneer or RMBL, or gain lab experience alongside professionals, graduate students or faculty mentors, like at NIST, AFRL, or Teen Science Scholars. Lab-based programs can be especially useful if you want to explore future careers in research across fields such as cancer biology, molecular biology, health sciences, data science, biomedical sciences or engineering.
Location matters just as much as subject area. Students outside the Denver-Boulder-Colorado Springs corridor, or those balancing a packed summer schedule, may find that a fully virtual option like the Pioneer Research Institute or MIT PRIMES-USA offers high school students sustained, mentor-guided research with the commute or residential cost. Students who want to stay local and build a relationship with a nearby lab may prefer a commuter program like CS@Mines or the CU Science Discovery STEM Research Experience.
Cost and stipend structure vary widely across this list, from fully paid federal internships to five-figure residential programs, so it’s worth weighing financial aid availability alongside prestige.
If you’re interested in conducting the highest level of research for high school students, consider joining a Pioneer information session to learn more about the Pioneer Research Institute.
Based on a recent survey, 71 percent of Pioneer Research scholars’ acceptances were to the top 20 US colleges and universities. Additionally, our alumni report acceptances to highly-selective institutions at a rate five times higher than the school’s published acceptance rate.
If you are a 9th or 10th grader, we encourage you to also check out the Global Problem-Solving Institute. You’ll have the rare opportunity to take an interdisciplinary approach to complex world programs, while earning college credits from UNC-Chapel Hill.
Between federal labs, university programs, and fully virtual options, research programs for high schoolers in Colorado span nearly every subject and budget. The strongest ones combine real mentorship with genuine student ownership of the work. Federal and university-backed options like the NIST Summer High School Intern Program in Boulder, CS@Mines at the Colorado School of Mines, and the Children’s Hospital Colorado Child Health Research Internship all place students directly into environments where they can contribute to cutting-edge research.
Fully virtual programs, including the Pioneer Research Institute and MIT PRIMES-USA, are also strong options because they’re open to any Colorado student regardless of where they live in the state, and both are considered among the most rigorous research pathways available to high schoolers nationally.
Yes. Several Denver- and Boulder-area programs on this list carry no program fee and, in some cases, pay students a stipend. The NIST Summer High School Intern Program in Boulder is unpaid but free of charge, selected CS@Mines research interns can receive $20-per-hour scholarship funding, the Children’s Hospital Colorado internship provides a $4,400 stipend, and the Denver Museum of Nature & Science’s Teen Science Scholars program provides a stipend as well.
While some residential or university-run options operate on a tuition model, they often offer generous financial aid. The Pioneer Research Institute, for example, will meet 100% of demonstrated financial need to eliminate any cost barrier for participation.
Two programs on this list are fully virtual and open to eligible students anywhere in Colorado: the Pioneer Research Institute, where students complete original, college-level research one-on-one with a university professor across a wide range of subjects, and MIT PRIMES-USA, a year-long mathematics research track for students outside the Greater Boston area.
Both eliminate the commuting and housing barriers that rule out many in-person programs for students in other parts of the state.
It depends on the program. The Pioneer Research Institute offers 4 accredited, generally transferable credits through Oberlin College, and the RMBL field biology course offers up to 2 college biology credits through Western Colorado University, while the Frontiers of Science Institute offers high school students an option to earn college credit through the University of Northern Colorado (per FSI).
Many of the other programs on this list, including the federal and hospital-based internships, do not offer college credit and instead emphasize research experience, mentorship, and stipends over academic credit.
Most summer programs for high school students in Colorado set application deadlines between late fall and mid-March, though timelines vary considerably. MIT PRIMES-USA typically closes in early December for a January start, while AFRL Scholars accepts applications from fall into January for the following summer.
Because several Colorado-specific programs, including CU Science Discovery and Children’s Hospital Colorado, have selective or capacity-limited spots, students should plan to research and prepare applications by early winter of their junior or senior year.
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