Transitioning Sustainable Manufacturing Undergraduate Research Experiences from an In-Person to a Virtual Format

ABSTRACT

The Summer Academy in Sustainable Manufacturing is an NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Site that offers unique summer undergraduate research experiences in the challenging field of sustainable manufacturing to national undergraduate students from two and four-year institutions. The objective of the REU Site is to introduce undergraduate students to the forefront of sustainable manufacturing research and to provide participants with the skills and pathways to pursue advanced degrees or careers in sustainable manufacturing. The intensive ten-week summer research and professional development experience hosts ten students per summer and addresses National Science Foundation priority areas such as advanced manufacturing and sustainability. Undergraduate research projects in the REU site address manufacturing process, manufacturing system, and fundamental sustainable manufacturing principles within continuous (e.g. chemical manufacturing) and discrete (e.g. automotive manufacturing) manufacturing systems. Projects are further associated with topics that cross cut the aforementioned thrust areas such as, emerging and environmentally benign materials manufacturing, sustainable process design and control, and life-cycle engineering and value recovery. Traditionally, this REU Site hosts in-person undergraduate researchers to undertake their research projects in a faculty mentor laboratory during the program. However, the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated that the REU Site program be held virtually during the summer of 2021. This poster and summary paper detail the steps taken to transition REU Site program activities to a virtual environment and post-program evaluation results of participant experiences. Evaluation results of the virtual program are compared to evaluation results of prior in-person Summer Academy in Sustainable Manufacturing programs. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.