The Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) research program involves students working on interdisciplinary projects across department and college boundaries.
VIP team members work as part of a multidisciplinary group of undergraduate students, graduate students, research staff, and faculty members to tackle novel research and design problems around a theme. Undergraduate students that join VIP teams earn academic credit for their participation in design/discovery efforts that assist faculty and graduate students with research and development issues in their areas of expertise.
VIP teams are:
- Multidisciplinary, drawing students from all disciplines on campus;
- Vertically-integrated, maintaining a mix of freshman through PhD students each academic term;
- Long-term, in that each undergraduate student may participate in a project for up to three years and each graduate student may participate for the duration of their graduate career.
The continuity, technical depth, and disciplinary breadth of these teams are intended to:
- Provide the time and context necessary for students to learn and practice many different professional skills, make substantial technical contributions to the team project(s), and experience many different roles on a large, multidisciplinary design/discovery team.
- Support long-term interaction between the graduate and undergraduate students on the team. The graduate students mentor undergraduates as they work on the design/discovery projects embedded in the graduate students' research.
- Enable the completion of large-scale design/discovery projects that are of significant benefit to faculty members' research programs.
Examples of current VIP projects include “The Future of Power and Energy;” “Wireless Systems for the IoT;” “Fixing a Broke Knee;” “Smart Manufacturing: Model-Predictive Safety;” and “Applications, Algorithms, & Architecture for Neuromorphic Computing,” among others.
Current students interested in applying for participation can get more information here.
Rei Ballabani is getting valuable hands-on research experience developing a data gateway thanks to the Vertically Integrated Projects program.
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