NSF-funded Research Experience for Teachers Completes 5th Successful Year!

This summer, WPI labs hosted 8 middle-school teachers in the 5th year of our NSF-funded Research Experience for Teachers program. Teachers worked closely with faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates on research projects in cutting-edge Biomedical Engineering applications.  In addition to completing a research project, each teacher designed a lesson to implement in their middle-school classrooms. The program has been running since 2008.  We have reached well over a thousand students with our curriculum units in this time!

The program is directed by Professors Camesano and Billiar.

This year’s research projects included:

• Design an Environmental Wet Cell for an Atomic Force Microscope (Tom Oliva and Veronica Tate with Kris Billiar and Qi Wen)
• Attaching Fibroblast cells to a Slide on PDMS with a Sharklet Pattern (Rhea Brown and Michelle Gallagher with Chris Lambert and Terri Camesano)
• Design of a Microthread Crosslinking Device (Jared Quinn and Jonathan Kiniry with George Pins and Jon Grasman)
• Design of a Device to Spin Cell Loaded Sutures: We Spin Cells Right Round (Kerin Biggins and James Kobialka with Glenn Gaudette and Katrina Hansen)

Front: Rhea Brown, Michelle Gallagher, Veronica Tate, James Kobialka, Professor Terri Camesano, Professor Kris Billiar
Rear: Tom Oliva, Kerin Biggins, Jared Quinn, Jonathan Kiniry