This post discusses the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program. You can read about various Wolfram education programs and the Wolfram Middle School Summer Camp to learn more about these programs specifically.

As the Precollege Educational Programs Manager at Wolfram, I have the privilege of working with hundreds of bright, passionate students from middle school to college. In this post, we’ll be exploring the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program, Wolfram’s flagship program for younger students. I’ve been the Program Director since 2019, and it’s been a joy to expand and extend the Wolfram education ecosystem over that time. We have worked hard to create enrichment programs for talented students, and we now have a rich ecosystem of opportunities for students of all ages.

What Is the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program?

The Wolfram High School Summer Research Program is a project-based research opportunity for motivated high-school students. In just two and a half weeks, students are guided by expert mentors to develop a project using Wolfram Language at the intersection of modern computing and an academic interest of their choice. Students then publish a computational essay to showcase their work.

The Wolfram High School Summer Research Program is for students who love to dig deep into complex problems and think outside the box. It’s perfect for those who are drawn to learning for the sake of discovery—whether that’s through coding, research or creative problem solving. The program is especially suited for bright students who might not exactly fit in with the typical school environment but find their passion in academic exploration. No matter what STEM or STEM-adjacent subject they get excited about, they’ll find others who share their passion.

We accept between 65 and 75 students aged 14 to 17 to the program, with the occasional 13-year-old. Students come from around the world and from many different economic backgrounds. What they all have in common is the motivation to achieve difficult goals and passion for a subject (or multiple subjects).

The Wolfram High School Summer Research Program is held on the beautiful campus of Bentley University, outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Students get to experience university life, often for the first time. Students tend to enjoy the opportunity for some independence and freedom in the safety of a university campus.

Academic Experience

The Wolfram High School Summer Research Program is a primarily academic program, and our goal is to help students find crossovers between their interests, explore brand-new topic areas and complete a research project in a subject that matters to them. Going from a novice Wolfram Language coder to producing high-quality research is no trivial matter, and it doesn’t happen without hard work from students and staff.

Admission to the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program

Admission to the program is competitive and requires students to answer several short essay questions, complete a coding problem set and attend an interview. Students are not just assessed on their academic record, but also their passion and critical thinking skills. A successful Wolfram High School Summer Research Program student will be self-motivated and able to parse new information to find creative solutions to unique problems. We’re not just looking for the brightest students, but for students who are passionate about their field and who will take the best advantage of the program.

For students who may not be ready but are eager to strengthen their skills for admission the following summer, we recommend checking out Computational Adventures, a set of project-based learning experiences designed by the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program directors.

Pre-program Workshop

Many students don’t have access to high-quality computer science education, even if they’re bright and motivated. To make sure that more fantastic students have access to the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program, we offer a free pre-program workshop to students who haven’t coded before. At the workshop, we cover introductory material in computer science and Wolfram Language, letting students begin the summer on a level playing field with the others.

Learning Wolfram Language

A big part of the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program is learning to code in Wolfram Language. Wolfram Language is a symbolic language, deliberately designed with the breadth and unity needed to develop powerful programs quickly. Coding in Wolfram Language allows students to skip out on the usual learning curves that people often get stuck on and move straight to being able to do powerful things with their code.

Creative Computation

Before the summer begins, students take the interactive Wolfram U course Creative Computation. Designed by the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program directors, Creative Computation is a fast introduction to Wolfram Language and computational thinking more generally. In the project-based course, students create computational art and poetry, explore audio and build video games to gain a solid foundation in coding. Students who come to the pre-program workshop do a small subsection of the course.

Experiential Learning

When students arrive on campus, we spend the first few days extending our understanding and abilities in Wolfram Language, computer science and computational thinking. In small groups, assisted by a mentor, students work through a set of carefully curated mini-projects on a wide range of topics. Students deepen their understanding of coding concepts by solving problems like creating a facial recognition application, analyzing epidemic data, finding programmatic solutions to word problems, debugging broken code, creating computational artwork, building dynamic weather forecast applications, exploring cellular automata, manipulating neural networks, analyzing chemical compounds and planning optimal road trips.

By working through these problems with peers and mentors, students both explore new topics and get better at coding in preparation for their project.

The Project

Once students have a good grasp of Wolfram Language, we move on to the main part of the program: doing a project. Students propose potential projects as part of their application, and we have a large bank of potential projects for students to do in all subject areas. Each student meets with their mentor, the directors and Stephen Wolfram to decide on a project that will suit them best. At the end of the program, students publish their research project on Wolfram Community to a wide audience of potential reviewers. Successful students are encouraged to submit their project for assessment for Wolfram U’s Applied Expertise in Computational Research certification and may turn their project into a paper for submission to a journal.

Interdisciplinary Work

All projects at the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program are interdisciplinary, meaning that students work on the crossover of at least two of their interests. For one of our students, that meant combining his passion for sailing with his academic interest in physics to create aerodynamic simulations to find optimized paths for sailing. For another, that meant combining a deep love of chemistry with an interest in data analytics to analyze molecular cages. We take great care to combine students’ interests in new and interesting ways, which often means students create amazing projects with unusual subject combinations.

This wide scope of projects is unique to the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program. Where most programs focus on a particular branch of STEM, the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program encompasses all STEM and STEM-adjacent subjects and creates an environment where students can explore pretty much any topic. Even if it’s drone ballets, tongue-twisting poems or ancient Greek syntax. To see the rest of our students’ unique projects, take a look at the project gallery.

Examples of Projects

To understand the breadth and depth of projects at the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program, it’s worth diving into a few projects in different areas, done by students at different stages of their educational journey.

Example 1: Minimal Universal Classical and Quantum Gates

At the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program in 2024, Christopher Gilbert explored minimal universal classical and quantum gates for his project. By formulating classical operations in terms of linear algebra, he implemented a quantum computing simulator that can run both classical and quantum gates. Christopher used his simulation to find a novel minimal set of 2→2 quantum gates that may be the smallest set ever found.

Christopher was able to explore the universality problem in detail, engaging with graduate-level mathematics and computer science topics.

Example 2: Simulating the Flocking Behavior of Boids within a Parametrically Defined Vector Field

Engaging with his interest in robotics and mathematics, Ritvik Gupta’s 2024 project explored the boid simulation, a widely used model for simulating emergent flocking behavior from simple rules. Ritvik implemented algorithms to manipulate the boid simulation with vector fields, maintaining flocking behaviors across parametric paths while avoiding obstacles. Ritvik’s project has applications to computer graphics and swarm robotics, and he was able to touch on his interests in physics, biology and computer science.

Example 3: Building Nanobelts in Silico

Ananya Thota’s project combined her interests in chemistry and biomedical research to model carbon nanobelts and explore potential scientific applications. Ananya computationally generated nanomaterials and explored the potential of nanobelts to secure molecules. This work has applications in medicine development and medical procedures.

Example 4: Animating Drone Light Shows

Eleanor Chen, one of the youngest students in 2024, followed her passions for algorithm development and art to create an application to map pathways for drones to follow when transitioning between formations. Her approach focused on determining the best flight paths for drones by minimizing flight time and distance traveled as they move between sections of a performance. Her algorithm allows groups of drones to transition seamlessly between individuals and groups of images.

Mentors

Throughout the project development cycle, students are supported by expert mentors. The mentor team is made up of Wolfram employees, professors and industry experts, as well as undergraduate and graduate students. Undergraduate mentors are usually Wolfram High School Summer Research Program alumni and complete extensive training as part of the Wolfram Emerging Leaders Program.

Our mentors are experts in both Wolfram Language coding and their area of STEM or STEM-adjacent academic study. Each year, we have a slightly different set of academic areas covered by the mentor team but subjects our mentors regularly excel at include computer science, mathematics, physics, life sciences, engineering, linguistics and economics.

Mentors have three or four students in their group and help each student individually to understand academic content, plan their projects, code, write their essays and learn soft skills like research and independent work. Mentors also help students collaborate between similar projects, teach students concepts they’re less familiar with and help keep students on track to finish a great project.

Academic Extension

Although doing a project is the core feature of the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program, there’s a lot more to the program! Students engage in a rich schedule of academic and non-academic activities ranging from quantum physics to karaoke nights.

Seminars and Talks

Throughout the program, students can elect to attend lectures and small-group seminars on a range of topics. Seminars are usually led by mentors and include a short teaching period to go over an advanced topic, followed by activities or discussions. Talks are usually given by guest speakers and are more focused on exploring a subject in a lecture format.

The seminar and talk schedule is different each year, catering to the admitted students’ interests and current trends in technology. Some amazing speakers we’ve had in the past include Sam Blake, who solved a Zodiac Killer cipher; Christian Pasquel, indie hacker and computational artist; Brian Silverman, founding developer of MIT’s Scratch; and Maggie Wear, fungi researcher. Seminars have ranged from creating mathematical art, to exploring the backend of Wolfram|Alpha, to engaging with computational chemistry, to analyzing the linguistic differences between foreign languages.

Engagement with Stephen Wolfram

Stephen Wolfram, founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, is highly engaged with the summer programs. From the start, Wolfram and the directors work with each student to find a project that’s right for them, and many projects are specifically crafted by Wolfram to suit a student’s interests and abilities.

Credit to hidoba.com.

One of the first major events at the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program is a question and answer session with Wolfram, where topics range from entrepreneurship to physics to history to education.

Throughout the program, students have the opportunity to meet with Wolfram in small groups focused on particular topics. These small groups take a walk around campus to deep dive into something that interests them, get meaningful advice and share their interests. This is an unparalleled opportunity for engagement with a researcher and CEO.

It’s not all business, though, and students also have the chance to hang out with Wolfram on several evenings throughout the program. He usually has some cool technology to share, and students might get to experiment hands on with VR headsets, robots, drones, vintage math equipment or interesting software.

Recreational Experiences

While the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program is an intense academic program, we still have a lot of fun! Whether we’re learning to tango, singing a capella or building roller coasters for marbles, there’s a wealth of non-academic experiences to round out the summer.

Minors

Minors are an opportunity for students to deep dive into a creative or physical activity. For several evenings throughout the program, students get to stretch their brains in non-academic directions by choosing to join one of the minor tracks. Each year, we design minors around admitted students’ interests, giving options such as creative writing, nature walking, sports, music, dance, art, speech and debate, photography, and video game design.

Minors give students the chance to get to know a different group of people, learn a new skill and relax from the rigor of doing their projects.

MIT Field Trip

No summer program would be complete without a field trip—and the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program students have one of the best. After a quick ride into Boston, students take the time to explore the MIT Museum, where they find hundreds of hands-on, interactive exhibits focusing on problem solving with science and technology.

Once students have explored the museum, the MIT graduates on the staff team take interested students on a personal tour of the MIT campus, where they learn some secrets, take in the tourist destinations and learn about what life at the university is like.

Students have some free time to explore Cambridge and find some great food before we head back to Bentley for cozy activities and snacks.

Later in the program, students have a choice of mini-trips, either dinner or a hike at the Storer Conservation, in the city of Waltham, which is a great chance to take a break before the project deadlines.

Social Activities

Throughout the program, we have a schedule of social activities led by the teaching assistant team. From casual board games and spirited Model United Nations debates to soccer games and German crash courses, students have plenty of options to fill their evenings, make friends and share their hobbies.

The biggest social activities at the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program include a mini-hackathon, where students have just two hours to build a product based on a theme; a capture the flag coding competition, where students solve Wolfram Language puzzles to unlock a secret code; and a trivia night on popular culture, history, science and music.

Great Friends

One of the best things about bringing an eclectic group of bright students together is how quickly a community forms. Students who may struggle to develop deep friendships at school find themselves able to talk late into the night with people on their wavelength. The group as a whole is incredibly accepting and welcoming, and students get to socialize in a variety of environments from formal activities to free time.

In past years, students have started their own book clubs, lecture circles to share their interests, video game tournaments, pick-up ball games, walks around campus and music nights, creating a friendly and lively atmosphere for everyone.

Many students stay in touch for years after the program, cementing truly lifelong friendships with research partners, startup cofounders and energetic debate opponents.

After Summer

College Destinations

Graduates from Wolfram programs have gone on to attend top universities from around the world, and usually manage to find each other there! With groups of alumni meeting regularly at MIT, UC Berkeley, Stanford University, the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago, there are ready-made communities for talented students to join.

We are always happy to write letters of recommendation for successful alumni, helping students gain access to their top choices of schools.

There are also plenty of opportunities to stay involved with Wolfram programs, getting steadily more advanced. You can find more information about our advanced programs in our post about the Wolfram education ecosystem.

Ready to Attend the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program?

There are so many reasons why this program can be one of the best experiences of a student’s high-school career. The students who thrive at the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program are the ones who love exploring big ideas and working on projects that blend unexpected disciplines. The program offers a chance to dive into advanced, interdisciplinary research alongside expert mentors who genuinely want to see students succeed. It’s an environment where curiosity and passion are celebrated and where students often find others who share their excitement for tackling complex problems and creating something unique. Whether students are exploring big scientific questions, pushing the boundaries of computational creativity or simply finding a community of people who “get” them, Wolfram’s education programs offer a space where their talents and perspectives will be welcomed and encouraged for years to come.

Applications for the Wolfram High School Summer Research Program and the Wolfram Middle School Summer Camp open in November each year, and we hope to see you, your children or your students there!

Find more information about other educational opportunities:

• Wolfram Emerging Leaders Program »
• Wolfram U: Creative Computation »
• Wolfram Student Ambassador Initiative »
• Computational Adventures »