Aside from internship programs or summer programs, oftentimes the most straightforward way to get a research position is to ask the professor with whom you want to work. This can be done in a variety of ways but the easiest and most common way is through email. So how should you go about emailing the PI (that's private investigator, a science term for the professor that leads a research team)?

The first thing that you should do is to identify where you want to do research and which professors are available that you wish to contact. If you want to do research in a university you should go to departmental web pages and browse through the various faculty and mark the ones with interesting research projects. In doing so, keep in mind whether you want to work with a more junior level faculty (e.g. assistant professor) or senior level faculty (e.g. named full professor). The former will allow you more interaction with the professor. On the other hand, the latter will usually result in your working with a graduate student or postdoc but with the professor's famous name as support. Another point of consideration is whether the professors have had undergraduate students or high school students work with him or her in the past - this will signal to you the lab's willingness to take in and mentor a younger scientist.

You should compile a list of at least 10 professors since emailing professors usually results in lots of rejections. After all, you are still relatively new to the research process and these PIs have whole labs to take care of. I personally emailed fifty something PIs for one summer research position so you should definitely not be discouraged.

Now that you have a list of people to contact, what should you include in the email?

Here is the general structure with bolded areas as needed to be personalized by you:

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Dear Professor [Name],

My name is [Name] and I am a [freshman/sophomore/junior/senior] at [school name]. At the moment, I am exploring summer research internships and was particularly interested in your lab, especially the focus on [research topic e.g. genomics and cancer] since I have always enjoyed both the life sciences and mathematics. I was wondering whether you were accepting students for this summer.

To give you some background, my interest in science research started from my high school sophomore summer. [Go on to describe background in science research or why you are interested. This is your chance to talk about yourself, how you are a great student at school and suited for science research and so forth.].

Attached is my resume with some more details about my qualifications. I am looking forward to hearing from you. Thank you very much for your time and consideration!

Sincerely,
[Name]

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Basically all the emails that I've sent out have followed the above structure. The email starts out with a brief introduction and puts your stated purpose up front (namely that you want to look for a research position in the lab). The introductory paragraph should indicate that you have knowledge of the lab's research topics but should also be general enough to be tailored to multiple labs since you will end up reusing the same letter to email multiple professors.

The body of the email should really be a place for you to show off why you are a great student and a (potentially) great researcher. Don't hold back - make sure that the professor doesn't ignore you because of your age by giving plenty of evidence of your ability.

At the end you should mention that you have attached a resume (click here to learn about making resumes) and then thank the professor.

If everything works out well, you should have an offer from a professor sooner rather than later - good luck!