Undergraduate students have a complex and often problematic history of representation in research on writing pedagogy. They have been described as novices and outsiders, while having minimal input into how they are studied and represented. In this piece, I share my efforts to rethink the roles and relationships among researchers and student participants, and particularly to rethink how students contribute to pedagogical research. In my recent experience working with six, undergraduate, student co-researchers, I found myself complicating not only the roles of students as research participants but also my own role as researcher, a role that became increasingly hard to extricate from those of teacher, colleague, advocate and friend. Such complications, I argue, are actually strengths and sources of especially rich data, for strong interpersonal connections lead to increased trust and engagement. Trusting, engaged students contribute information and examples that a researcher may not think to ask for. By blurring researcher and participant roles and foregrounding student voices, then, we can deepen the connections and conclusions made in pedagogical research, and students can be not just participants in our research but skilled researchers in their own lives.