| A 2009 Student Summit, organized
by the Engineering Research Center (ERC) for Revolutionizing Metallic Biomaterials
(RBM) at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NCAT),
enabled mingling and discussions among ERC students, faculty, and scientists
from all the ERC’s partner institutions. This Summit has since been
supplemented by periodic tele-meetings of the RMB Center’s Student Leadership
Council, as well as by frequent travel between campuses of faculty-graduate
student teams for research exchanges. Further, NCAT, University of
Pittsburgh (Pitt), and University of Cincinnati (UV) ERC students and faculty
participated actively in the 2009 Bio-Medical Engineering Society Conference
in Pittsburgh. An inter-campus collaboration has led to the students
taking the leadership in generating the ERC’s first newsletter, to be issued
in Spring 2010.
During Fall 2009 and Spring
2010, NCAT, Pitt, and UC graduate students made good use of the cyberinfrastructure
by taking Pitt-led courses introducing the Principles of Cell Biology and
Principles of Biodegradable Metals, along with modules on creativity and
innovation. The RMB ERC is headquartered at NCAT, which is the first
Historically Black College and University (HBCU) to lead an ERC. Consequently,
many of the students involved in the ERC are from groups traditionally
underrepresented in engineering. |
