NSF Award
0108497
Simmons College, a predominantly undergraduate women's college, and the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at Cornell University establish a partnership to develop opportunities for science students at Simmons to participate in materials-related research throughout their undergraduate careers. The overall thrust of the project focuses on establishing a collaborative Simmons/Cornell research program on organic electroluminescent materials that provides opportunities for students to work with faculty on timely research projects, have access to sophisticated instrumentation, and gain related work experience in industrial settings. Another goal of the project is to interest female undergraduates in participating in material research and to encourage them to consider further career explorations in this area. <br/><br/>This project establishes a model relationship between a predominantly undergraduate institution and a large research university and its federally funded research Center. The undergraduate institution enhances its research efforts through increased access to collaborators and instrumentation at the large research university. The latter benefits from enhanced recruitment access to a talented pool of undergraduates and from opportunities for its graduate students to interact with undergraduate faculty and to consider a postgraduate career at an undergraduate institution.
