(375o) An Interdisciplinary Research Site for Emerging Researchers within the Functional Materials and Manufacturing Institute at University of South Florida

Early research experiences would benefit from an environment of reinforcement and practice of basic skills within a supportive network, which also provides guidance towards career options. Such an environment could also provide a variety of opportunities to develop and practice communication skills, and provide exposure to more challenging topics such a design and integration. Undergraduate research experiences in such an environment can be expected to increase retention of participants in research careers, especially via pursuit of graduate education. High school experiences in such a program are expected to increase interest in STEM careers. The Functional Materials and Manufacturing Institute (FMMI) at University of South Florida (USF) engages in interdisciplinary materials and engineering research, and its outreach programs explicitly aim to provide such an environment to diverse participants, which include high school students, REU program participants, international interns, and high school teachers. Functional materials are prevalent throughout the modern world, and are constant reminders of advances from engineering. 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. FMMI research experiences are designed to include substantial time towards hands-on research, while also emphasizing non-research elements including career guidance, technical writing and presentation skills, safety, ethics and team-building. In this contribution, the overall program for emerging researchers at FMMI will be discussed with an emphasis on best practices for integrating multi-tiered efforts in an interdisciplinary environment. Research highlights and achievements from the participants will also be presented.