Present your research at the 2026 Chelsea Research Festival!
Eligibility criteria: Your submission must be about the results of research. (Your research can be in any field, such as history, health, physics, etc.) In addition, one of these things must be true:
- The research is about Chelsea in some way, OR
- One of the researchers is a Chelsea community member (for example, a current resident, recent former resident, recent graduate of Chelsea schools, recent or current attendee or graduate of BHCC, etc.)
Submission process: People who are interested in presenting a poster must submit the form by April 10, 2026. The group organizing this event will review the submissions. You will be notified of your acceptance on a rolling basis, so feel free to submit early!
What do we do at the Chelsea Research Festival? The Festival is a poster session---researchers stand next to their posters and answer questions and have conversations with attendees about their work. Researchers do not need to prepare slides or give talks. Refreshments and English-Spanish interpretation will be available.
Where and when is the Festival? The Festival will be held in the Chelsea High School gymnasium on Monday, May 18, 2026, from 1:30-6:00. There will be a session with students as the target audience from 1:30-3:00, a break from 3:00-4:30, and a session with the wider community as the target audience from 4:30-6:00.
Questions/concerns: If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at [email protected].
Help us spread the word by distributing these flyers to your networks!
Flyer for Chelsea community members
Flyer for Chelsea educators
Flyer for academics
Get involved
Keep updated
Volunteer
Our planning committee meets 30 minutes every other week (more or less, depending on the time of year) from October to May. If you'd like to help plan next year's festival, email us!
Even if you can't join the meetings, there are still other ways to volunteer. Just send us a message and we can talk more.
Sponsorships
We always need event sponsorships. It takes about $9,000 to hold the festival each year. If your organization can contribute, get in touch!
Why a research festival?
Chelsea residents are knowledgeable, resilient, and resourceful. We take an active role in our community and in our health, and often work with researchers who study how to improve quality of life amidst challenges related to access to services, environmental injustice, and COVID-19 spread.
However, the Chelsea residents who spend time and energy participating in research often don't get to hear about the results of these studies.
Meanwhile, young people in historically marginalized communities like Chelsea face barriers that reduce their likelihood of becoming researchers themselves.
The Chelsea Research Festival addresses both issues at once by bringing together middle and high school students, researchers from universities and hospitals, professionals from local government and nonprofits, and other community members into an annual poster session that showcases research that is either ABOUT Chelsea, or conducted BY Chelsea community members—or both!
The 2025 Chelsea Research Festival
The 4th annual research festival on May 15, 2025, was a huge success! We had 29 amazing poster presentations!
A huge thank you to our planning committee members: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the Boson/Providence Center for AIDS Research, Bunker Hill Community College Chelsea, Chelsea Public Schools, HarborCOV, Massachusetts General Hospital, Metropolitan Area Planning Council and Northeastern Solutions to Urban Pollution (iSUPER).
And another huge thank you to our generous sponsors:
Check out photos from the event below!
Some of our presenters have generously allowed us to upload their posters!
Check them out here:
Our story
Read our article to learn the whole story of how the Chelsea Research Festival came to be!