Undergrad research with friends; one of them does nothing About halfway through last semester, my professor asked me to do research under her with a group of people I had been friends with since freshman year. Dream come true! These are all people I already like working with, it's research in a field we are all interested in, we already spend a lot of time together, etc. The best part is, we all benefit professionally from this! Perfect!

My only concern now is that one of my friends just doesn't do anything for the project except show up to the meetings. It causes me a lot of heartache because I am close friends with this person, and I want to see him succeed. I've talked to him about it before, he hasn't given me any reason. I've told him ways he could contribute, he just never does.

On another level, it makes me upset because this is an opportunity I imagine many people would love to have. It's not fair to other people interested in research that this person may end up piggy-backing his way to a publication! If I weren't on this project, I know I would be upset.

Any suggestions for how to handle this unfortunate situation?

(Also, if there's any way to make this anonymous, that would be nice, too... I'm not interested in one of my colleagues seeing this)
It sounds like this question is about undergraduate research.

If an undergraduate student does not want to participate in research, that's fine.  They're welcome to have other priorities.  Other students have no responsibility to deal with a student who is not participating.

If a student is trying to get credit for participating in research but does not actually do anything, that is a matter for your professor to deal with.  They're responsible for setting standards.

If the students are not getting paid, there is no reason for the professor to push out a student who is not doing anything.