REU Site: Textiles of Tomorrow: Equipping the Next Generation to Design a Sustainable Future

About This Grant

The Textiles of Tomorrow REU Site will support eight undergraduate students each summer for 10 weeks of research and hands-on experience within the Textile Engineering, Chemistry and Science (TECS) department at NC State University. Research has shown that engaging students early in enriching research experiences is a highly effective approach for attracting, cultivating, and retaining individuals in STEM careers, as well as bolstering their motivation to pursue a graduate degree. Research projects will focus on innovative new materials, including the development of biodegradable and nano fibers for medical and other applications, such as tissue engineering, renewable dyes and auxiliaries, green composites, low-energy coloration methods, and smart textiles (i.e., electronically embedded fibers and yarns) for health monitoring. The TECS department is an interdisciplinary department where faculty range from the physical sciences (i.e., organic, inorganic, and polymer chemistry and fiber and polymer sciences) to various engineering disciplines (i.e., industrial, mechanical, aerospace, electrical, chemical, bio-medical/physiology, and materials science), giving students a unique experience in solving grand challenges that society faces today. Participants will learn about a remarkable, large-scale textile industry that encompasses unique opportunities at traditional textile and apparel companies, such as Nike, Under Armour, North Face, and Patagonia, as well as non-traditional textile companies like Apple, Meta, Tesla, Google, and Intel. To tackle the prevalent grand challenges confronting our world today, we face not only the need for innovative solutions but also the need to cultivate a young pool of the next generation to push the boundaries of research and accelerate innovation in STEM fields. Thus, the new external REU site will be housed at NC State University in the College of Engineering and the Wilson College of Textiles. The site will be committed to establishing a transformative research experience for undergraduate students in the fields of textile engineering, chemistry and science (TECS). The TECS department is globally recognized as the preeminent hub for textile education, research, and innovation. The TECS department has a strong core of faculty engaged in research across a broad range of disciplines within the physical sciences and traditional engineering. The proposed new REU site will complement our well-established TECS Internal REU program, which has earned high accolades from the NC State Chancellor and is the largest and most comprehensive program of its kind at the university. Through the new REU site, these external students will interact with our internal TECS students, bringing a broader perspective to each group. Having internal students will allow external students to be more connected to the university and the city of Raleigh. Like the well-established TECS REU program, the proposed new REU site will offer enriching hands-on research experiences and professional development workshops, fostering engagement between faculty and graduate and undergraduate students. Faculty mentors and other research staff will guide students through the entire research process — from literature review and experimental design to analysis and communication of findings. Programming will include rotating additional faculty office hours, peer-led technical sessions, and professional development workshops, which will cover both scientific topics like reading and summarizing literature, analyzing findings, learning about microscopy and other equipment, and presenting and communicating technical topics, and professional topics like tours of extensive facilities, visits to companies, resume building, LinkedIn and networking, interview skills, and going to graduate school. Student participants will have multiple opportunities to present their research in public, including oral presentations in group meetings, peer presentations, and a poster presentation at the campus-wide undergraduate research symposium, which will take place at the end of the program. It will recruit participants through partnerships with a variety of institutional types, including community colleges, teaching-focused colleges, and schools with limited research capacity. All engagement and recruitment efforts will be open to all eligible students, in accordance with the NSF's guidelines. 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.