$428,937; U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU)

REU Site: Engineering research in a liberal arts and entrepreneurship context

Principal Investigator: Ali Hamed, Thomas J. Watson, Sr. and Emma Watson Day Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Department Chair; Co-Principal Investigator: Ann Anderson, Agnes S. MacDonald Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Union College’s first-ever NSF REU Site will provide thirty undergraduates from two- and four-year colleges with immersive faculty-mentored engineering summer research experiences. As engineering REU Sites are typically set at large research universities with Ph.D. programs, this award highlights Union’s strength in engineering research, its long tradition of providing transformative undergraduate research experiences, and its lasting success in delivering engineering education in a liberal arts context.

The REU Site students will engage in high-quality, faculty-mentored research experiences in biomedical, civil, computer, electrical, environmental, materials, and mechanical engineering and will contribute to the various stages of research, including research design, experimental setup, data collection, analysis, and writing. These research experiences will be enhanced by their active participation in Union’s bi-weekly summer undergraduate research programming, where they will present their own research and learn about the research being carried out across campus through elevator pitches, research talks, and poster sessions. Additionally, workshops will be facilitated by PI Hamed and co-PI Anderson, where the REU Site students will learn more about engineering and research ethics, data analysis, and effective writing and communication in engineering.

As a complement to their robust, holistic research experience, the REU Site students will attend professional development programming related to crafting resume, navigating the job market, pursuing scholarships and fellowships, and applying to graduate school. For the community college students participating in the REU Site, a workshop on applying and transitioning to four-year programs will be led by the PI and co-PI and will focus on the application process and strategies for seamless transition. This workshop will feature Union admission staff and community college alumni who have successfully transitioned to four-year programs. The PI and co-PI will also run a workshop that builds upon the summer research programming that will further expose REU Site students to graduate school, including details of the application process. This workshop will include a panel of graduate students chosen from recent Union graduates that are currently attending graduate school.

This experience will be further bolstered by the entrepreneurship component of the summer programming (U-Corps). Modeled after NSF I-Corps™, U-Corps will enable REU Site students to understand the long-lasting impact their research may have through its potential societal impacts, applications, and commercialization. The goal of this programming is to provide students with the ability to think about how research results can be translated from the lab to the marketplace with thoughtful consideration of societal and customer needs. U-Corps activities will include developing a commercialization or social impact idea related to the summer research projects, introducing them to the business canvas model and customer discovery techniques, performing customer discovery, and presenting their findings to a wider audience.

The skills developed through these activities will spark students’ interest in engineering and STEM careers, position them to persist in STEM, develop their experimental, analytical, and communication skills, and enable them to place their research in wider contexts, including potential societal impacts, applications, and commercialization.

Mentor-led research projects, research mentors, logistics, application materials, and contact information will be added to the Union REU Site webpage later this fall.