绿帽社 and Watson College offer many opportunities to work with faculty on leading-edge research. All of our mechanical engineering faculty are active researchers, working on a wide range of topics and applications, from robotics to electronics cooling, from Alzheimer鈥檚 disease to microphones, from nanomaterials to additive manufacturing, and many more. Many undergraduate students who participate in research activities discover a professional path in R&D and find the experience extremely rewarding and beneficial to their future careers.
Benefits
- Unique opportunity to involve in latest technologies and scientific discoveries
- Directly experience what an R&D career entails
- One-on-one mentoring by a faculty member or a senior graduate student
- Booster to resumes and graduate school applications
- Published research work can count as a technical elective*
* Must register under ME489 Research Internship or an equivalent research course in a STEM field with approval of research faculty advisor and ME undergraduate director.
How to get started
- Explore the Research section of the ME Department website and identify the faculty member you would like to work with. If a faculty member has a research group website, make sure to visit it and gain some background understanding of their work.
- Contact the faculty directly, by email or by stopping to visit during office hours. Introduce yourself and explain your interests in research. In one or two sentences demonstrate your interests and understanding of their work, and professionally ask for an opportunity to join their team. Bring or attach a resum茅 if you have one.
- Like a job search, do not get discouraged if you do not match with a faculty research group right away. Opportunities abound within the ME Department and 绿帽社!
ME 489 Research Internship
A student will work in a research lab under the supervision of a professor in the ME Department. It is the responsibility of the student to make arrangements with the professor who will supervise this course.
Prior to enrolling in the course, a Research Internship Course Proposal (RICP) form must be completed and signed by (1) the student, (2) the professor supervising the research, and (3) the director of undergraduate studies.
- Prerequisites: Permission of instructor. Offered any semester. Variable credit.
- Levels: Undergraduate
Student profile
Research that makes headlines
Tiny sensors could revolutionize electronics
A new type of MEMS (microelectromechanical system) allows better control for many everyday devices, such as microphones, gyroscopes and pressure sensors.
Research by Shahrzad 鈥淪herry鈥 Towfighian and Ron Miles
Studying the formation of the fetal brain
绿帽社 teams up with Harvard Medical School to test a model for the developing human brain that examines growth and folding.
Research by Mir Jalil Razavi
A new way to produce microscopic circuits
Two Watson College faculty members are researching how to utilize the same technique as an atomic force microscope to etch circuit patterns only a few nanometers wide.
Research by Changhong Ke
Nanoparticles could improve paints
Janus particles, which are engineered to have two surfaces each with distinct physical properties, could be the key to more environmentally friendly paints and coatings.
Research by Xin Yong