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Undergraduate research is a common method for students to gain experience in fields related to their major during their time in college. While involvement in research has many possible outcomes for undergraduates, the study of its effect on engineering, leadership, and engineering leadership identity development is underdeveloped and inconclusive. To contribute to this area of study the experiences of four undergraduate engineering students who were involved in research were examined through combined collective case study and autoethnographic methods. The research the students participated in centered on understanding the development of the identities of interest in engineering students more broadly, giving the four students repeated opportunities to engage with the subject. This combination of involvement in research and exposure to engineering, leadership, and engineering leadership concepts was found to have mixed results. The impact on the student's own identity development was inconsistent, ranging from positive to negligible to negative. It is hypothesized that this discrepancy can be attributed to diversity of individual experience both before and during involvement in research.