ECE undergrads participate in research through EURO
Through the Engineering Undergraduate Research Office (EURO), 18 Purdue Engineering undergraduates participated in first-time research opportunities during the 2020-2021 academic year. These first-time researchers received a $1,000 stipend to engage (3 credit hours’ worth of time commitment) in research labs in the 2021 spring semester. EURO’s goal with the first-time researcher program is to broaden participation, increase access and exposure to research and create a pipeline of researchers.
All of the awardees presented their work at the Office of Undergraduate Research’s (OUR) Spring Symposium. EURO and OUR collaborate to host campus-wide conferences each semester. EURO offers a variety of options for students to showcase and publish their work, including the Spring Purdue Undergraduate Research Conference (PURC), Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium, and Fall Undergraduate Research Expo. Many undergraduate research programs and academic units also have symposia and poster sessions throughout the year.
The System on Chip Extension Technologies (SoCET) team is overseen by Mark Johnson, the Director of Instructional Laboratories at the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, in collaboration with Matthew A. Swabey, the Director of the Bechtel Innovation Design Center. The primary goal of the team is to provide students with a comprehensive System on Chip design, fabrication and test experience that simulates industry practice. Johnson’s intention is to engage both undergraduate and graduate students on meaningful chip design fabrication projects.
Johnson spoke about his time overseeing two first-time researchers who joined without extensive experience: Landon Carre and Ishmam Iqbal. Their initial assigned task was to "survey literature on Rad-Hard design as it relates to the design of integrated circuits," Johnson said. He added, "What impressed me was that they were able to define projects to carry on what they were doing."
Landon Carre was a freshman in electrical and computer engineering when he joined the Rad-Hard (Radiation Hardening) sub-team. He's researching what happens when highly ionized particles are hitting electronics and finding the negative effects of it. He found out about the project through an elective class, where students were told that many professors were looking for curious people who were interested in their projects. "You don’t have to be by any standards a genius to do research, but you do need to be hardworking," he said.
As a junior in electrical and computer engineering, Ishmam Iqbal joined the Rad-Hard sub-team. He thinks that his past coursework will help him with concepts he encounters while on the Rad-Hard Team, and Rad-Hard will help him with future coursework, and he appreciates his project mentors.
EURO will continue to offer first-time researchers fellowships through various grants. Undergraduate students with no prior college-level research experience are eligible to apply for the fellowship. Students may apply for available opportunities through the Engineering Symplicity portal. The successful student applicant is expected to engage in research in a lab in Spring 2022 (approximately equivalent to 3 credit hours' worth of time commitment/10 hours per week).