What Has Been Achieved: Pivoted to the virtual world for all MRSEC events in the 2020-2021 academic year, which included our weekly seminar series, monthly professional development series, and monthly Ed Out team meetings.
Importance of the Achievement: MRSEC events were more inclusive by allowing collaborators and partners from across the country to participate in our weekly MRSEC seminars, professional development workshops and be part of our Educational & Outreach team.
Unique Feature(s) of the MRSEC/PREM that Enabled this Achievement: MRSEC’s deep network of academic researchers and industry partners allowed us to continue to offer weekly research seminars and professional development opportunities in the virtual environment. MRSEC’s ability to recognize that grad students were facing “zoom fatigue” and reaching out and establishing new collaborations and partnerships within the University community. The goal of the partnership with Multicultural Engineering Graduate Association (MEGA) and Computation Materials Education and Training (CoMET, NSF-funded) was to prevent duplication, be more efficient for professional development programming for our student’s and expand a student’s network on campus by introducing them to the partnering organizations and students in those organizations.