Project Lead - J Marino
Project Team - R Cooper, BS Duerstock, BJ Pitts
We recruit and enroll highly motivated undergraduate students majoring in areas of engineering and rehabilitation sciences from diverse ethnic, racial, socioeconomic, and otherwise underrepresented populations, especially PWD, to participate in experiential research internships. Specific Aim 1: To engage undergraduate students in rehabilitation engineering through active mentorship and project completion and help them understand the cogent issues faced by PWD to effectively apply engineering principles to improve function, quality of life and society participation for PWD.
Training Activities: Upon selection, students are assigned an active RERC research project and the guidance of a graduate student, post-doc, or staff/faculty researcher who will personally mentor them throughout their experience. Students engage in weekly workshops to facilitate comprehension of rehabilitation engineering subject matter, professional and scholastic development, and stakeholder engagement.
Co-Op Students: Each year the RERC supports the training of cooperative study students, primarily from the engineering disciplines, to work and learn full-time from members of our team for one to two semesters. This intense level of training helps to expand the student’s classroom experience, provides valuable exposure to research, and enhances our research and development capacity. These students are often among the best and brightest of their peers and have diverse backgrounds who may not otherwise be exposed to RERC R&D.
Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU): Each year, we host undergraduate students from throughout the US. For 10 weeks, students work with RERC investigators to learn more about rehabilitation research and development. The primary objective of the program is to provide an exemplary mentoring and research experience environment that enables undergraduate students to: 1) transition from dependent to critical thinkers; 2) develop a sense of excitement about entering a rehabilitation engineering or science field; and 3) be well prepared for their future careers.