Christopher Weyant, PhD, started the Materials Science and Engineering Summer Institute in 2012 with the aim of exposing high school students to materials science in a college setting. The institute began as a suggestion of the then Materials Science program director, Antonios Zavaliangos, PhD; this suggestion would prove to be a success. Over the years, the program has steadily increased in terms of students enrolled (this year, there were 61 students enrolled in total), continuing to provide rising junior and senior students with exposure to materials science and engineering.
“Before the institute, I’d never heard about electrospinning of nano-fibers and dye-sensitive solar cells,” says Nathaniel Yardger, a rising junior at Morristown High School and participant in the institute this year. “I’ve learned a lot about both this week. I found the lectures particularly interesting and helpful; they helped me a lot in understanding the projects we were doing.”
Students in the institute attend lectures for the first full day of the program and part of the second; the rest of the week is more hands on with students breaking into teams and working on projects based on what they’ve learned in lecture. This year, students built dye-sensitized solar cells, and compared the power outputs of them to commercial solar cells. The last day of the institute, students present their findings via oral presentations to an audience of their parents.
“That’s one of the most rewarding parts of working with the institute,” says Weyant. “Watching the students work through the scientific process and then presenting what they find. There’s this spark they get, working through things they haven’t before.”