Collaborative Research Competition

2025-26 Collaborative Research Competition

Alpha Chi's collaborative research theme this year is Magic Through Collaboration: Reimagining the Impossible, inspired by the location of the 2026 National Convention in Orlando, Florida, near Disney's Magic Kingdom!

Read the 2025-26 Call for Teams & Projects for all the competition details and guidelines, and use the button below to complete the Intention to Compete Form to declare your team by Oct. 1, 2025.

Intention to Compete Form

Alpha Chi is an interdisciplinary honor society, and this annual competition is one way Alpha Chi fosters collaboration among student members from these different academic fields. The competition is named for Dr. Trisha Yarbrough, the society’s third executive director who was responsible for the idea that Alpha Chi, a multidisciplinary organization, should proactively encourage collaborative undergraduate research with an express focus on finding solutions for real-world issues thus clearly making “scholarship effective for good,” the society’s charge to members since the 1930s.

The competition is judged by an interdisciplinary panel of judges that evaluates multiple competition elements. Any Alpha Chi chapter may assemble an interdisciplinary team to research a common goal. See below to learn about this year's top two teams.

$5,000 First Place Prize

Texas Psi, Abilene Christian University, Abilene, TX
Michael Campbell, Adrian Puckett & Jennifer Wadlow

$2,500 Second Place Prize

California Zeta, Fresno Pacific University, Fresno, CA
Brooke Barham, Jan Bialecki, Jasmine Sirvent, Fatima Torrez-Sanchez & Safaa Umar