(221c) An Interdisciplinary Research Program for Undergraduate within the Functional Materials and Manufacturing Institute at University of South Florida

Upper level undergraduate students often need reinforcement of basic skills, previews toward more challenging topics, a mindset toward design, guidance toward career options, and a variety of opportunities to develop and practice communication skills. At the Functional Materials and Manufacturing Institute (FMMI) at University of South Florida (USF), these topics are simultaneously addressed through research in functional materials. Research is identified as a method of engagement and retention of students. Functional materials are prevalent throughout the modern world and are constant reminders of advances from engineering. Thus, research experiences in functional materials, with a mindset toward application/manufacturing, is an outstanding topic to engage emerging researchers with a wide variety of interests. Most emerging researchers in the FMMI research program are upper level undergraduates in chemical engineering, but the research program has included high school students, lower level undergraduates, and K12 teachers. In this contribution, the overall program for emerging researchers at FMMI will be discussed. Specifically, the non-research elements will be highlighted with an emphasis on junior/senior undergraduate researchers. These elements include career guidance, technical writing and presenting, and aspects of safety and ethics in an interdisciplinary environment, which permits creativity and variety in the research experience. With a current NSF REU site grant, correlations are made between applicants majoring in the chemical engineering selecting projects advised in a wide variety of fields and certain aspects of mentoring for a short project period will be highlighted.