Undergraduate students are often viewed as assistants, but at the Center for Research on Complex Thinking (CRCT), they often play central roles in our efforts to cultivate the Quantitative Ethnography (QE) research community of practice. This talk explores how the NSF-funded QE Fellows Institute leverages a distributed research leadership model to build STEM education capacity in the U.S. By moving beyond traditional hierarchies, we have cultivated a high performing team that accelerates both methodological training and professional growth. Through real-world examples and interactive discussion, we will explore the challenges and opportunities of this model—offering a roadmap for how you can empower undergraduates to transform your own research.

Attend in person or online on Zoom.