Graduate students who participate in MRSEC research also engage in a variety of professional development, outreach, education, and community building activities in order to develop and improve their communication, leadership, presentation, networking and demonstration skills. All MRSEC funded grads select to participate on one of the following teams each year:
OUTREACH TEAMS FOR FALL 2025 - SUMMER 2026
K-12 Outreach & Education Team
Mission: to engage, inspire, and educate youth audiences, parents, and teachers about materials science through active involvement by researchers in public events and STEM programs hosted by outreach partners while also building important and transferrable communication, presentation, facilitation, demonstration, leadership, and professional soft skills.
To accomplish this, team members focus on utilizing, developing, and implementing hands-on interactive demonstrations and short activities. Currently, their efforts include:
- Utilizing, updating/improving, and promoting the Mission: Materials Science activities and platform to virtual (and eventually "live") audiences.
- Partnering with Discovery Space of Central Pennsylvania to bring materials science focused outreach programs to K-8 students.
- Coordinating the Arts Festival Kids Day science event on Old Main Lawn (during the annual Central PA Festival of the Arts event each July).
- Developing new activity ideas and learning how to test and adapt them for different ages and venue situations.
- Presenting activities at many additional local public outreach events (e.g. Exploration U, Grange Fair), STEM programs on campus (e.g., Science U summer camps, Envision) and classrooms with teachers (e.g. Milton Hershey School, local RET educator partners) to gain experience, get inspired by kid's curiosity, and build those important transferrable skills.
Lab Leaders Team
Mission: to engage in group learning activities and create programmatic opportunities that educate the broader research community about the connections between effective research practices, daily operations, lab management, and professional skill development connects to future career roles, industry needs, and broader institutional and societal contexts.
To accomplish this, team members:
- Create an annual "event" for inclusion in the annual Safety Olympics hosted by Penn State's Materials Research Institute.
- Conduct informational interviews with industry professionals and faculty researchers to learn how they obtained the essential leadership skills to successfully and productively manage laboratory operations, personnel, and work productivity in corporate and academic settings.
- Develop and host a webinar series with industry representatives to highlight case studies in the industrial research setting where companies addressed an operational, management, or environmental problem and found a way to solve it.
- Develop and implement a "How to Run a Lab" workshop for fellow student colleagues based upon information obtained through the informational interview process described above.
