Delila Wilburn, a University of Georgia (UGA) undergraduate student from Washington-Wilkes, is one of 27 students taking advantage of summer vacation to investigate local, national, and international research topics. These students are the latest participants in the summer research fellowship program sponsored by UGA's Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities (CURO.)

Wilburn will help compile video clips of notable leaders during the Civil Rights Movement to be archived online for the Civil Rights Digital Library, a component of the Multi-cultural Archive of Georgia, which is dedicated to making the electronic media of the Digital Library of Georgia more accessible to teachers and students at the high school and college levels.

She will also evaluate the role of African American women during the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Arts Movement.

Wilburn is completing both projects under the guidance of Barbara McCaskill, a professor of English. Wilburn hopes to attend graduate school for library and information science after earning her African American studies degree from UGA.

For the last six years, CURO has competitively awarded summer fellowships to undergraduate students to conduct research in various disciplines under the guidance of faculty mentors with expertise in fields ranging from international business and linguistics to biochemistry, molecular biology, and infectious diseases.

"Students who have held CURO summer fellowships have achieved great success in recent years, as evidenced by the prestigious scholarships they have been awarded and the premier graduate schools they are attending," said David S. Williams, director of UGA's Honors Program, which administers CURO. "We greatly appreciate the support we receive across campus for this important program."

The summer undergraduate researchers earn academic credit for conducting their individual projects and give presentations of their work at the undergraduate research symposium CURO sponsors every spring.