{"id":209,"date":"2024-05-02T07:25:30","date_gmt":"2024-05-02T07:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/sawberries\/2024\/05\/02\/fostering-research-careers-community-materials-science-0501\/"},"modified":"2024-05-02T07:25:30","modified_gmt":"2024-05-02T07:25:30","slug":"fostering-research-careers-community-materials-science-0501","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/sawberries\/2024\/05\/02\/fostering-research-careers-community-materials-science-0501\/","title":{"rendered":"Fostering research, careers, and community in materials science"},"content":{"rendered":"
Gabrielle Wood, a junior at Howard University majoring in chemical engineering, is on a mission to improve the sustainability and life cycles of natural resources and materials. Her work in the Materials Initiative for Comprehensive Research Opportunity<\/a> (MICRO) program has given her hands-on experience with many different aspects of research, including MATLAB programming, experimental design, data analysis, figure-making, and scientific writing.<\/p>\n Wood is also one of 10 undergraduates from 10 universities around the United States to participate in the first MICRO Summit earlier this year. The internship program, developed by the MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE), first launched in fall 2021. Now in its third year, the program continues to grow, providing even more opportunities for non-MIT undergraduate students \u2014 including the MICRO Summit and the program\u2019s expansion to include Northwestern University.<\/p>\n \u201cI think one of the most valuable aspects of the MICRO program is the ability to do research long term with an experienced professor in materials science and engineering,\u201d says Wood. \u201cMy school has limited opportunities for undergraduate research in sustainable polymers, so the MICRO program allowed me to gain valuable experience in this field, which I would not otherwise have.\u201d<\/p>\n Like Wood, Griheydi Garcia, a senior chemistry major at Manhattan College, values the exposure to materials science, especially since she is not able to learn as much about it at her home institution.<\/p>\n \u201cI learned a lot about crystallography and defects in materials through the MICRO curriculum, especially through videos,\u201d says Garcia. \u201cThe research itself is very valuable, as well, because we get to apply what we\u2019ve learned through the videos in the research we do remotely.\u201d<\/p>\n Expanding research opportunities<\/strong><\/p>\n From the beginning, the MICRO program was designed as a fully remote, rigorous education and mentoring program targeted toward students from underserved backgrounds interested in pursuing graduate school in materials science or related fields. Interns are matched with faculty to work on their specific research interests.<\/p>\n Jessica Sandland \u201999, PhD \u201905, principal lecturer in DMSE and co-founder of MICRO, says that research projects for the interns are designed to be work that they can do remotely, such as developing a machine-learning algorithm or a data analysis approach.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important to note that it\u2019s not just about what the program and faculty are bringing to the student interns,\u201d says Sandland, a member of the MIT Digital Learning Lab<\/a>, a joint program between MIT Open Learning and the Institute\u2019s academic departments. \u201cThe students are doing real research and work, and creating things of real value. It\u2019s very much an exchange.\u201d<\/p>\n C\u00e9cile Chazot PhD \u201922, now an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern University, had helped to establish MICRO at MIT from the very beginning. Once at Northwestern, she quickly realized that expanding MICRO to Northwestern would offer even more research opportunities to interns than by relying on MIT alone \u2014 leveraging the university\u2019s strong materials science and engineering department, as well as offering resources for biomaterials research through Northwestern\u2019s medical school. The program received funding from 3M and officially launched at Northwestern in fall 2023. Approximately half of the MICRO interns are now in the program with MIT and half are with Northwestern. Wood and Garcia both participate in the program via Northwestern.<\/p>\n \u201cBy expanding to another school, we\u2019ve been able to have interns work with a much broader range of research projects,\u201d says Chazot. \u201cIt has become easier for us to place students with faculty and research that match their interests.\u201d<\/p>\n