Awesome question Marisa!

There are some great adaptations we would like to keep post pandemic. For example, we teamed up with Skype-a-Scientist for online international outreach. This gave us the opportunity to virtually "visit" classrooms in Canada and the Philippines and share our research and international collaboration with students. It was amazing! We're glad to have done that and plan to continue this post-pandemic. 

On the other hand we will miss the face to face industry visits. We hope to schedule more of them when we get a chance to travel next year. 

Thanks!

Seetha

Hello Seetha, 

What kind of Industry visits would you typically conduct during the course of a "normal" school year? This program sounds awesome. International travel and aerospace science? Does it get any better than that :>

Many Thanks

Mike 

Hi Samantha -

So what is the number one thing you learned while working with an international team this year and why? 

Many  Thanks

Mike 

Thank you for the question!

Because my DLR advisor is in a different environment from myself currently, there are differing ideas that arise. Through communication with the international team, I learned that great planning and structure is needed in order to be successful. Ensuring that each meeting is filled with vital information and questions on how to further my research. Overall, it has been helpful to understand how I can go about tasks from a different perspective.

Have a nice day!

Samantha

International research experiences in STEM are not as common as they should be and the more we share our program with a wide range of students, the more we empower them to seek these and similar opportunities. Broader impact is so important to us. Since not all students can travel, our students are excited to "bring everyone along for the ride". In addition to outreach, the students write blogs. At UCF, we're lucky to have the Program Evaluation and Educational Research (PEER) group to help us conduct pre-experience and post-experience surveys and collect data on research outcomes as well as broader impact outcomes during STEM events. We learn from this and get better every year!

Nothing can replace in-person experiences when it comes to soaking in the culture, surroundings and overall atmosphere of being in a different country. In terms of the program, some of what we will miss are the best mentorship experiences with the international advisors through direct communication, access to facilities and technical experts and face-to-face industry visits where we get to see how products are manufactured and tested. There is so much more that the students will learn when we get the chance to travel and we are looking forward to it next year.

Thanks, Seetha! (Also, and this is just a curiosity question, what kind of diplomatic hoops or export control of intellectual property did you have to jump through? I'm guessing on the NSF side, probably none, and you didn't collaborate with NASA, correct? I just wonder if there are any interesting nuances to work with a foreign federal agency that you can tell us about!)

Thanks for the question Rebecca. Export control of materials is something to always look out for when working on international research. Luckily UCF has a great Office of Export Compliance to help us navigate this. As for intellectual property, we have just been granted a joint patent for our team effort on devising a characterization technique for measuring sand ingression and we hope this will be the first of many! 

Vanessa, thanks for your response. I'm curious to know more about what kinds of collaboration you were actually able to do. Is it mostly data analysis? Or were you able to engage in laboratory-based activities?

Hi Rebecca, and great question!

For my research specifically, we've actually been able to receive samples from my DLR mentor to analyze using some equipment on UCF campus! Given this, I have thankfully been able to develop my lab-based skills in addition to those of data analysis and critical thinking, even with the hurdles placed in our way by the pandemic.

Thank you for your question!