Posted on Aug. 13: Summer students present innovations in engineering, science

The innovations of science and engineering summer students will be on display in the lobby of the Information Technology Building Thursday.

More than 80 students in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research (BIMR) and students in science and engineering, will present their summer-long efforts in poster format at a symposium from 9 to 11:30 a.m.

Students who have learned from and worked on research-oriented endeavors during the summer will participate in the poster presentation.

Originally planned to exhibit the projects of the 34 engineering students in the UROP, the poster presentation now incorporates BIMR summer students.

“John Preston (associate professor of engineering) asked if the summer students working in the BIMR could participate,” says Anne Markey, manager of Engineering Career Services and the UROP program, “From there, the poster presentation rapidly expanded.”

While participation was a must for UROP students, other students had a choice and an overwhelming majority chose to create a poster and be on hand to discuss their contributions to ongoing research, Markey says.

UROP, a new initiative in engineering, provides research-oriented summer jobs for first- and second-year students. The objectives of the program are to provide professional environments conducive to research advancement and career skills development and building networks between students, faculty and researchers.

In the

BIMR summer school, exceptional undergraduate students from around the world conduct a research project, explore frontier topics in the science of materials and discover a range of industrial contacts. Working with faculty members, BIMR students spent three months working on a real research projects utilizing techniques such as electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction.

These initiatives are part of a proposed research-based experiential learning within McMaster's Faculties of engineering and science. “We're doing a variety of things concerned with attracting the best and the brightest students,” Markey says. “What students want is ways to gain experience that will help them in their careers.”

The public is invited to tour Thursday's presentation and talk to students about their experiences, Markey says. “We encourage everyone to drop in and learn more about the contributions undergraduate students are making to research within the Faculties of engineering and science.”