Last summer, Caltech junior Julie Jester worked on a project that might one day partially counteract blindness caused by a deteriorating retina. Her job: to help Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering Azita Emami and her graduate students create the communications link between a tiny camera and a novel wireless neural stimulator that can be surgically inserted into the eye.

Now in its 34th year, Caltech's Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF) program has paired nearly 7,000 students with real-world, hands-on projects in the labs of Caltech faculty and JPL staff.