Exposure of Undergraduate Research Students to Entrepreneurial Activities to Motivate Future Research Careers

Ranji K. Vaidyanathan; Mwarumba Mwavita; Kathryn Ann Bartosik; Pankaj Sarin

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Conference: 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
Location: Virtual On line
Publication Date: June 22, 2020
Start Date: June 22, 2020
End Date: June 26, 2021
Conference Session: ENT Division Technical Session: Entrepreneurship and IP
Tagged Division: Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 15
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--34653
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/34653
Download Count: 581

Paper Authors

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Ranji K. Vaidyanathan Oklahoma State University orcid.org/0000-0003-3697-4264

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Dr. Ranji Vaidyanathan is presently the Varnadow Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the Helmerich Research Center at OSU Tulsa. He was previously the Director of the New Product Development Center (NPDC) and the Inventors Assistance Service (IAS) at Oklahoma State University.

Dr. Vaidyanathan has eighteen U. S. patents and twenty-two pending patent applications. He has developed six different products from concept stage to commercial stage including a product commercially being sold to Airbus, Eurocopter, Lockheed and Boeing.

At Oklahoma State University, Ranji works collaboratively with faculty members from various disciplines and colleges to develop products and solutions for Oklahoma small manufacturers. As the Varnadow Professor, Dr. Vaidyanathan works with the Helmerich Research Center faculty to develop a major research and technology transfer thrust in composite materials.

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Mwarumba Mwavita Oklahoma State University

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Associate Professor in Research, Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics and Director of Center for Educational Research and Evaluation (CERE) at Oklahoma State University. My research interests are in teaching and learning of STEM courses at both K-12 and college. Specifically, examination of factors influencing student performance in STEM related courses and instructional pedagogies at the college level associated with success in STEM courses.

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Kathryn Ann Bartosik Clarkson University

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Kathryn is senior chemical engineering major at Clarkson University with minors in business and communications. Kathryn worked on the NSF-funded Innovation Corps project in the summer of 2018, and she interned at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in the summer of 2019.

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Pankaj Sarin Oklahoma State University orcid.org/0000-0001-9110-7660

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Abstract

The potential that materials-based solutions hold for global challenges such as in biomaterials, energy, environment and aerospace is undisputed. Therefore, it is imperative to groom undergraduate engineering and science students with a broad-based materials science and engineering back-ground, in order to maintain technological leadership position of developed and developing countries in the 21st century. Our Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program is based on the premise that interdisciplinary research training including entrepreneurship is essential for a complete research experience in Materials Science. Our objective was to expose undergraduate scholars to a variety of materials research with applications in energy, aerospace, defense, environment and agriculture. Undergraduate scholars were (1) provided hands-on materials research experience in multidisciplinary engineering projects, (2) introduced to cutting-edge materials characterization methods through a 2-day national workshop on Advanced Materials Characterization webcast for easy access, (3) exposed to entrepreneurial routes to commercializing materials research in collaboration with the School of Entrepreneurship by leveraging the University's Innovation Corps site program, and, (4) educated students about graduate programs and careers. This hypothesis was tested by including students with an innovation and entrepreneurship background with an undergraduate student performing research and conducting multiple customer discovery interviews to evaluate if the research is needed and if it has commercial potential. It was observed that including entrepreneurial activities such as customer discovery and the Innovation Corps program in the research experience changed the way in which the students viewed the research question. The students were more enthusiastic about their research and were able to communicate their findings and goals in a clear fashion at the end of the REU program. Participation in the REU program has resulted in three graduated students accepting jobs at start-up companies and two of those students to participate in proposal writing activities. One of the significant impacts of this program was in grooming undergraduate engineering and science students to pursue interdisciplinary research with a strong-base in materials science and engineering. We believe that this is critical for developing a workforce to address global grand challenges in energy, aerospace, medicine, environmental sustainability and maintain technological leadership position of developed and developing countries in the 21st century.

Citation
Format

Vaidyanathan, R. K., & Mwavita, M., & Bartosik, K. A., & Sarin, P. (2020, June), Exposure of Undergraduate Research Students to Entrepreneurial Activities to Motivate Future Research Careers Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--34653

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - The potential that materials-based solutions hold for global challenges such as in biomaterials, energy, environment and aerospace is undisputed. Therefore, it is imperative to groom undergraduate engineering and science students with a broad-based materials science and engineering back-ground, in order to maintain technological leadership position of developed and developing countries in the 21st century. Our Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program is based on the premise that interdisciplinary research training including entrepreneurship is essential for a complete research experience in Materials Science. Our objective was to expose undergraduate scholars to a variety of materials research with applications in energy, aerospace, defense, environment and agriculture. Undergraduate scholars were (1) provided hands-on materials research experience in multidisciplinary engineering projects, (2) introduced to cutting-edge materials characterization methods through a 2-day national workshop on Advanced Materials Characterization webcast for easy access, (3) exposed to entrepreneurial routes to commercializing materials research in collaboration with the School of Entrepreneurship by leveraging the University&#39;s Innovation Corps site program, and, (4) educated students about graduate programs and careers.
This hypothesis was tested by including students with an innovation and entrepreneurship background with an undergraduate student performing research and conducting multiple customer discovery interviews to evaluate if the research is needed and if it has commercial potential. It was observed that including entrepreneurial activities such as customer discovery and the Innovation Corps program in the research experience changed the way in which the students viewed the research question. The students were more enthusiastic about their research and were able to communicate their findings and goals in a clear fashion at the end of the REU program. Participation in the REU program has resulted in three graduated students accepting jobs at start-up companies and two of those students to participate in proposal writing activities. One of the significant impacts of this program was in grooming undergraduate engineering and science students to pursue interdisciplinary research with a strong-base in materials science and engineering. We believe that this is critical for developing a workforce to address global grand challenges in energy, aerospace, medicine, environmental sustainability and maintain technological leadership position of developed and developing countries in the 21st century.
AU  - Ranji  K. Vaidyanathan
AU  - Mwarumba Mwavita
AU  - Kathryn Ann Bartosik
AU  - Pankaj Sarin
CY  - Virtual On line 
DA  - 2020/06/22
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Exposure of Undergraduate Research Students to Entrepreneurial Activities to Motivate Future Research Careers
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/34653
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--34653
ER  -