MENTOR A FACULTY RESEARCH TEAM

Mentor a Faculty Research Team

The Faculty Research Student Teams unite undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty in a team-based environment to advance research projects in engineering and other STEM fields. Motivated undergraduate and graduate students who join these multi-year teams benefit significantly while advancing faculty research. More established teams develop into self-directed organizations that places a premium on faculty time directing research.

Benefits for Faculty:

  • Receive recruitment, academic advising, and team development support from MDP staff
  • Efficient use of the time and talents of passionate students who will make tangible and sustainable contributions to their research interests
  • Long-term time investment from students, requiring less start-up time
  • Leverage best practices distilled from multiple teams
  • Creates Long-Term Research & Development Experience:
    • Students work on a multidisciplinary research team for at least a minimum of two semesters, gaining valuable research and design experience. A minimum of two semesters provides students with the time and context to familiarize themselves with the lab, make meaningful contributions, and foster design and leadership skills. We seek to build teams with students who exceed the minimum time and context to familiarize themselves with the lab, make meaningful conditions, and foster design and leadership skills.
  • Cultivates Leadership and Mentoring
    • The long-term, sustainable nature of Faculty Research Student Teams creates a mentoring environment, where faculty and graduate students mentor teams, experienced undergrad students mentor new student members, and students rotate into leadership roles as others graduate.
    • In addition to research tasks, all students contribute to their team’s knowledge base: references and training materials that allow new team members to quickly become productive, regardless of experience level.
    • Joining a Faculty Research team thus helps students gain experience in team and project management, allowing them to become both great researchers and great leaders.

Each team is unique, and the Faculty Research Project Program can accommodate the changing needs of research by providing flexible and scalable team structures. Most teams start with a small “seed” group of 6-8 students directly overseen by one or more faculty. As the teams grow, they divide their work among several subteams, each led by an experienced student or lab member.

A diagram titled "Scalable Organization Structure" with two tree diagrams and three levels: Faculty, Subteam Leaders, and Members.

To learn more, please contact the MDP Progam Manager Ellen Solomon, PhD, at esitz@umich.edu.

See past teams in our portfolio