Faculty Research Teams

The Faculty Research Teams provide students with research and teamwork experience by uniting undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty in a team based environment to advance research projects in science and engineering. Motivated undergraduate and graduate students who join these multi-year teams benefit significantly.

• 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.