The Department of Mechanical Engineering hosts a summer Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) students entitled Multiscale Sensing Actuation and Imaging (MoSAIc). The program will create novel research experiences for undergraduate students in the areas of design and manufacturing of micro/nanoscale sensors, actuators, and smart materials, as well as advanced imaging and diagnostic systems. You’ll participate in cohort experiences such as short courses, joint seminars/meetings, workshops, tours of research facilities, and field trips. At the end of the program, you’ll participate in a joint poster symposium with students from other undergraduate summer research programs from across campus.

Research Projects
The MoSAIc REU will focus on fundamental research experiences related to
– Design and manufacturing of sensors, actuators and smart materials
– Advanced imaging and diagnostic systems and
– Big data approaches to design and analysis of sensing systems.

MoSAIc students have opportunities to become active members of interdisciplinary research groups and interact with faculty, post-docs, graduate students, and industrial collaborators. Before students arrive on campus, faculty will provide background reading material and videos to help them prepare for each project.

Facilities
The Department of Mechanical Engineering manages more than 50,000 square feet of modern research and teaching facilities, and every faculty member in this program has a fully equipped state-of-the-art research laboratory. REU students will have access to the full complement of the capabilities of these laboratories and will will also use the department’s excellent computational facilities.

Facilities available to MoSAIc participants include:
– An integrated materials testing systems (tensile, compressive tests)
– An advanced manufacturing laboratory with a suite of laser systems and composite material fabrication stations
– A machine vision laboratory with a unique high-resolution 3-D imaging system
– Scanning probe microscopy stations
– A Laser Diagnostics Laboratory with several Ti:sapphire (femtosecond) laser and related optics and electronics for capturing ultra-fast laser phenomena
– Electron microscopy and material characterization facilities of the on-campus Department of Energy (DOE) Ames Lab
– Multi-user facilities including the Virtual Reality Applications Center, Keck Laboratory for High Throughput Atom Scale Analysis, Carver Ultra-high Resolution Microscopy
– Laboratory, Supercomputing Facility, Chemical Instrumentation Center, and the Electron Microscopy Facility