First held in 2012, Discovery Day is an annual poster show organized as the culminating event for Princeton University seniors in the Minor in Certificate program (then ENV Certificate program), as well as undergraduate and graduate students who received field-research and fellowship support from HMEI. In 2018, Discovery Day was expanded to include students concentrating in ecology and evolutionary biology (EEB).

Discovery Day provides students with an opportunity to present and discuss their research methodologies and results, exchange perspectives, and propose solutions to the world’s most pressing environmental challenges. Event attendees — including fellow students, faculty and University administrators — are treated to an extensive display of the environmental research taking place at Princeton.

In 2023, High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI) hosted the tenth Discovery Day event – a multidisciplinary poster show celebrating student research on environmental topics. Hundred students from 26 academic departments, mentored by 71 faculty advisers, presented their work on focal themes including: biodiversity and conservation; climate and environmental science; new energy technology; culture and the environment; water and health. Coverage of past years’ events are below.

Since 2020, HMEI also has produced an annual archive of undergraduate research carried out by students who completed the ENV Certificate program, or who received field-research support from HMEI. Visit our Publications page for online versions of the booklets.

For more information or questions regarding the event, please contact HMEI’s Undergraduate/Graduate Program Manager Amber Lee.