REU Site: Advanced Interdisciplinary Materials Research for Maritime Applications

About This Grant

This Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (UMassD) provides an exciting residential setting for summer cohorts of eight community college students to participate in interdisciplinary research in advanced materials relevant to marine economy. This program begins with training sessions on safe laboratory practices, research ethics, design of experiments, research communication skills, and library databases. This 10-weeks program provides students with hands-on experience in interdisciplinary research, including hypothesis development, experimental design, and data analysis & interpretation. This program also offers field trips to local industries and national research laboratories, and workshops on professional networking and career preparation. The summer research program culminates with a closing symposium, and an open forum on industry and research careers with invited eminent marine materials scholars. This interdisciplinary site integrates the efforts of dedicated educators from three departments (Bioengineering, Chemistry & Biochemistry, and Mechanical Engineering) who have strong track records in mentoring students for research. The summer activities are designed to assist community college students seeking jobs in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields or pursuing education in four-year research universities, and to develop meaningful relationships with faculty and students. Innovative materials and their broader use are vital to improve the structural reliability and life cycle performance of ships and maritime structures, to lower their environmental footprint, to make maritime industries more viable at a global scale, and thus to generate and sustain employment. Many young scientists in STEM disciplines are naturally fascinated by these outstanding challenges as they search for a greater drive for their education and meaningful ways to serve society. The overarching goal of this REU site is to prepare scholars to address the challenges in advanced materials and fill critical gaps in knowledge on materials needed to transform marine technologies. The REU participants at this site conduct independent research on projects that will leverage and advance a wide range of studies on novel materials currently underway at UMassD, including: nonaqueous redox flow batteries, multi-functional sandwich composites, functional composite materials for structural energy storage, underwater super-hydrophobic surfaces, smart soft tactile sensors, nanostructured surfaces for antifouling, simulation and modeling of corrosion mechanism and inhibition in marine environment, and microbial valorization of lobster shell chitin. With the inter-disciplinary nature of these research projects, faculty and students interact and advance the materials science across different fields. The program will be assessed using pre- and post-program surveys, feedback from mentors and students, evaluation of research outputs, and tracking participants’ academic and career progress. 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.