The Magnum Opus is the capstone project for Witt Fellows. In their final year, Fellows engage in an independent scholastic exploration of a personal area of interest with community impact, with the support of an expert faculty advisor and cross-disciplinary feedback from their fellow Fellows. The Magnum Opus Experience culminates in a final deliverable which may take many forms, including traditional poster presentations and publication in academic journals, creative works, podcast series, product prototypes, white papers, and advocacy and direct action. Graduating Fellows present their work at an all-community symposium called Collecting Place.

Over their careers in the WUFP, Witt Fellows cultivate their personal passions and pursue experiences which shape their growing expertise in their given fields. The Magnum Opus Experience is meant to serve as an opportunity to dive deep into projects and areas of study that require concerted effort and extensive time commitment to execute—all conducted independently, but with the scaffolding and guidance afforded by dedicated advisors, cohort-based workshopping across boundaries of study, and regular meetings with WUFP directors.

Because each Magnum Opus represents the climax of each Witt Fellow’s individual journey through college—including coursework and independent study, extracurricular involvement, internship and work experience, and WUFP programming—expressions of Magnum Opus work have historically been highly variable. Past Magnum Opus projects have included:

• Lab-based study of anti-CRISPR and its potential impacts on engineering highly-effective phage therapies to combat the rise of antibiotic resistance
• Machine learning algorithms designed to parse millions of tweets to gauge public sentiment during election years
• Podcast series documenting the lives, struggles and triumphs of LGBTQ+ Alabamians
• White paper advocating for the responsible introduction of AI tools into accounting fields
• Purpose-built application to streamline the review process for restoring voting rights to the previously incarcerated
• Oral history of the process and legacy of desegregating UA sororities
• Digital art portfolios synthesizing available literature on women in wartime

…and more!