REU Site: Soft Materials for Applications in Sustainability and Healthcare Engineering

This new three year REU Site entitled "Soft Materials for Applications in Sustainability and Healthcare Engineering" hosted by the University of Notre Dame offers ten students each year a summer research experience and preparation for potential STEM careers. Recent advances in soft materials are empowering the research community with the tools needed to address issues that are among the greatest engineering challenges of the 21st century: creating a sustainable energy future, providing potable water to the world’s population, and developing affordable healthcare solutions.

This REU site, guided by faculty across the College of Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, will expose a cohort of undergraduate participants to state-of-the-art research in the molecular engineering of soft materials—an interdisciplinary subject that has historically been ignored in many undergraduate classrooms. Student recruitment is focused on groups from colleges lacking expansive research opportunities.

Key program elements that will help student researchers become independent, critical thinkers include technical preparation, hands-on laboratory experience, professional development, and team activities. In addition to producing impactful technical results, this REU site will provide participants with an immersive research experience that will encourage them (1) to enroll in or continue engineering education, (2) to persist to joining the science and engineering workforce, and (3) to consider research-based graduate degrees.

This new three year REU Site entitled "Soft Materials for Applications in Sustainability and Healthcare Engineering" hosted by the University of Notre Dame offers ten students each year a summer research experience and preparation for potential STEM careers. The objective of this REU site is to provide a supportive and instructive research environment for undergraduate students to develop their ability to advance materials-based solutions for ubiquitous sustainability and healthcare challenges.

Student-centric projects will be framed using two topical areas, sustainability and healthcare, highlighting the impact of engineering in everyday lives. The scope of the site will span from the basic science associated with the molecular design of polymeric materials through the engineering approaches used to define a solution to a problem of interest.

The primary goals of the program are to 1) help students develop the critical thinking skills needed to generate, analyze, and report technical data; 2) educate students on the professionalism needed to succeed in graduate school and the workforce; 3) expose students to multi-disciplinary approaches to address grand challenges; and 4) provide students incentives for pursuing careers in research. Entering students will be prepared for a productive experience through a short course that complements classroom-based discussions of foundational concepts with hands-on demonstrations of techniques.

Weekly workshops covering topics, such as science and engineering methods, communication, and careers, will encourage students to broaden their perspectives. The synergistic relationship between the research and educational activities will produce impactful results and train the next cohort of scientists and engineers.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.