Each year, The Multidisciplinary Design Program provides students with vetted engineering design project opportunities. We match teams of qualified students with faculty research labs. Faculty members are committed to providing students with an opportunity to develop practical design skills within a team while delivering results that have significant impact for the sponsoring organization.

Faculty Research Teams have 8-30 students, a dedicated UM faculty mentor, and frequently have graduate students. Students who are selected to join these competitive teams will work with their Faculty Mentor and team members to tackle challenging research problems. Minimum two-term commitment is required: Winter and Fall.

• Creates Long-Term Research & Development Experience

  • Students will work on a multidisciplinary research team for a minimum of two semesters, gaining valuable research and design experience. Students are encouraged to participate longer, with additional time and context, to make meaningful contributions, and foster design and leadership skills.

• Cultivates Leadership and Mentoring

  • The long-term, sustainable nature of Faculty Research Project teams creates a mentoring environment, where faculty and graduate students mentor teams, experienced undergrad students mentor new team members, and students rotate step into leadership roles as others graduate.

• Benefits for Students:

  • Develop research, engineering, teamwork, project management skills, and more
  • Work side-by-side with experts in their fields
  • Earn credit hours through ENGR 255, 355, 455, 599; or other courses as specified by your department or Honors program
  • Credit can also count toward Multidisciplinary Design minor
  • Great experience to build skills that will prepare you for an industrial or research career
  • Summer internships: You will see that some projects offer summer internship or funding to conduct research. Please read each project description thoroughly.
• Course Enrollment:
  • During the backpacking period, you will receive a Class Permission via email from the MDP office.
  • Receiving this email does not mean you are already registered for the class. You are responsible for utilizing the Backpack/Registration tool in Wolverine access by the expiration date in the email.
• Grading:
  • All Projects start in January and end in December.
  • Students earn a Y letter grade for the Winter term, indicating the mid-way point of a two-term course.
  • When the final grade is awarded at the end of the Fall Term, the Y grade will convert to the same letter grade.
  • If a student withdraws from the project or does not enroll for the second term of the project, the student earns a failing grade for all project credit hours.

PLEASE NOTE: You earn credit for your learning from the research. Time spent on the project during the Winter & Fall Terms is therefore not paid. Some of the organizations will offer a paid internship or research stipends for the summer.