GEARS in North Carolina
Mentored Research Experience
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Global Education Advancement and Research Seminar
GEARS is a unique academic, research and cultural exchange program that enables motivated university students from across the world to participate in academic research at universities across North Carolina. The program typically runs in the winter (January – February) and summer (June – August). We are currently accepting applications for the Summer 2026 online program.
Contact: gti-gears-staff@ncsu.edu
This is a competitive academic research seminar that does not involve credit or culminate in a degree. Acceptance into this seminar is not guaranteed and also depends on the capacity and interest of relevant faculty and departments. Students are encouraged to apply early.
Think, Do, Discover
The GEARS seminar will:
- Introduce students to university research (planning experiments, accomplishing research tasks, managing time, ethical issues in research, summarizing results, lab safety, using the library and other project-specific resources, etc.).
- Students will not engage in classified research or access research where IP issues are an issue, but we endeavor to pair students with faculty conducting relevant or similar research.
- Provide workshops on academic oral and digital presentation skills and various aspects of U.S. American culture.
- Support students as they determine if they are truly interested in pursuing a graduate research degree program at a North Carolina university or elsewhere in the U.S.
Application Requirements
Only students enrolled at institutions which have an active agreement with NC State University will be considered for the campus-based J-1 Program.
Documents Needed
- CV/Resume in English
- Official University Transcript in English: Minimum GPA of 3.0 on 4.0 scale.
- English Language Test Score in English: applicants need to submit one test
Native English speakers or students enrolled in a university that teaches in English are exempt.- Minimum required scores are:
- TOEFL iBT: 85
- TOEFL iBT Home Edition: 85
- CET 6: 480
- ELTS: 6.5
- TOEIC: 800
- TEM4: 80
- Duolingo: 100
- Minimum required scores are:
- All documentation must be submitted in English
Campus GEARS
for undergraduate students
Campus GEARS Information
Applications for the 2026 Summer Campus GEARS session are closed, and the Winter 2027 program will be announced later this year.
Cost
Program Fee: USD$4590 (GEARS Campus)
This price includes:
- Campus housing – room shared with another GEARS participant
- Arrival shuttle from RDU airport
- Program workshops and research/internship (Research skills instruction, Personalized poster feedback, Graduate admissions workshop)
- U.S. American culture courses and workshops
- Cultural activities in North Carolina and visit to nearby universities
- GTI Certificate and formal evaluation form from Mentor upon satisfactory program completion
- Transit and lodging in Washington D.C. at program end
Fee does not include:
- Airfare & J-1 Visa Fees
- Health Insurance
- Meals
Campus Process and Timeline
Application Opens January 27 1st Round Applicant Review & Placement Week of February 9th Applications Closed and 2nd Round Review & Placement April 17 Program Offer Made February 9 – April 20 Program Acceptance Deadline* 3 days after offer Professor-Student Introductions Starting June 23-25
Campus Travel and Arrival Information
The closest airport to NC State University is Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU). We recommend all accepted program participants fly into this airport on their program start date.
Please arrive during business hours from 8:30 AM-5:00 PM, if possible; if you cannot find a flight that arrives during this time, let us know your flight information in advance. We will do our best to arrange transportation for whenever you arrive.
Campus Cancellation & Refund Policies (J-1 Visa Programs)
Program Withdrawals and Refund Requests
If you can no longer participate in NC State University in-person programs (J-1 visa) and choose to withdraw after you have confirmed your acceptance, please email gti@ncsu.edu with an official withdrawal request along with a brief explanation for the withdrawal.
The following chart lists the schedule for refunds if you have already paid fees:
| Withdrawal Date | Refund |
| 45 Days or More Before Program Start Date | 50% of total fees paid |
Program Withdrawals and Refund Requests (Visa Denials)
If you are canceling your registration due to a J-1 visa rejection, the NC State Global Training Initiative will refund 100% of total fees paid (minus the $50 USD administration fee) provided you email gti@ncsu.edu within 15 days from the date shown on the letter of rejection, before your program start date.
Your email must include the following:
- An official withdrawal request
- The official letter of visa denial issued by a U.S. Embassy.
Program Cancellation (Low Enrollment)
GTI will inform the participants if the program does not happen due to low enrollment by May 22, 2026. In this case, the participants can switch to other GTI programs without any change fee. Otherwise, GTI will refund 100% of the program fee to the original payment method (debit/credit card, etc.). The refund may take a few weeks.
GTI cannot refund payments made to other entities (U.S. State Department, airlines, etc.)
Online GEARS
Online GEARS Information
Applications for the 2026 Summer Online GEARS session are open from February 10 through May 29. Admissions are made on a rolling basis with the first round starting on the week of April 13th.
Students can select two research topics of interest when applying to GEARS.
Cost
Program Fee: USD$1570 (GEARS Online)
This price includes:
- Lab placement and mentorship (by NC State & UNC System faculty) and university fees
- Online e-poster & presentation skills workshops
- Research skills workshops & resources
- Personalized poster feedback on first draft (one-on-one consultations also available)
- Live webinar on tips & procedures for graduate admissions
- GTI Certificate of program completion
- A formal evaluation from mentoring professor
Online Process and Timeline
Application Opens February 10 1st Round Applicant Review & Placement Week of April 13 Applications Closed and 2nd Round Review & Placement May 29 Program Offer Made April 13 – June 12 Program Acceptance Deadline* 3 days after offer Professor-Student Introductions Starting June 23-25
Program Highlights
Research Publications
GEARS participants and research mentors have had great success in submitting journal articles, conference papers and more to various publications and conferences.
Below is a shortened list of publications and topics that resulted from the research conducted during the GEARS program:
Publications and Conference Papers
- C. Huang, Z. Tay and K. Harfoush. “MASS Communication for Constrained Edge Devices”. Accepted for publication in the 30th International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN 2021).
- “Towards a Holistic View of Technology Commercialization” for TEMSCON-EUR 2021
- “On the Relationship between Digitalization and Managerial Competencies” for TEMSCON-EUR 2021
- “Efficacy of Satisfiability-Based Attacks in the Presence of Circuit Reverse-Engineering Errors” 2020 EEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS)
- Cheng, Y., Xie, C.-X., Wang, Y.-D., & Jiang, H. (2023). Chatbots and health: Mental health. In E. Ho, C. Bylund, J. van Weert, I. Basnyat, N. Bol, & M. Dean (Eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Health Communication. Wiley-Blackwell.
- C.D. Haigh, J.H. Crews, S. Wang, G.D. Buckner, “Multi-Objective Design Optimization of a Shape Memory Alloy Flexural Actuator”, Actuators, 8(13), 1-16, 2019.
- “An Interpretable Machine Learning Model to Classify Coronary Bifurcation Lesions” 2021 43rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society (EMBC).
- X. Neumeyer and M. Liu, “Managerial Competencies and Development in the Digital Age,” in IEEE Engineering Management Review, vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 49-55, 1 third quarter,Sept. 2021, doi: 10.1109/EMR.2021.3101950.
- “Measurement-Driven Flow Selection for Open vSwitch Offload” IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC 2022), Seoul, South Korea, May 2022.
- “Airplane Detection and Classification Based on Mask R-CNN and YOLO with Feature Engineering”
- “Enriching an Online Suicidal Dataset with Active Machine Learning”
- X. Neumeyer, K. Cheng, Y. Chen and K. Swartz, “Blockchain and sustainability: An overview of challenges and main drivers of adoption,” 2021 IEEE International Conference on Technology Management, Operations and Decisions (ICTMOD), 2021, pp. 1-6, doi: 10.1109/ICTMOD52902.2021.9739231.
- Cheng Y, Wang Y, Zhao W, Zhang K, Cai X, Jiang H. Virtually Enhancing Public Engagement During the Pandemic: Measuring the Impact of Virtual Reality Powered Immersive Videos on Corporate Social Responsibility Communication. Social Science Computer Review. July 2022. doi:10.1177/08944393221111482
- Cheng, Y., Yang, M.-G., & Chen, L. (2025). Brands and artificial intelligence. In D. Andreini & L. Zarantonello (Eds.), SAGE Handbook of Brand Management. Sage.
- Cui, X., Long, Qi., & Xie Zhifei. (2024). TRECVID MedVidQA Medical Video Question Answering Challenge (2nd place winner) for an NIH Conference
- Lu, T., Pang, H. (2024). A Machine Learning Based Approach for the Identification of Fake Bills in Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Mathematics Journal, vol 25, issue 2, article 1.
- Xie, C.-X., Wang, Y.-D., & Cheng, Y. (2022). Does artificial intelligence satisfy you? A meta-analysis of gratifications and user experience of AI-powered chatbots. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 40(3), 613–623. https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2022.2121458