In order to prepare students for flexible employment opportunities and provide them with the necessary experience in cutting-edge technologies, Wayne State University (WSU) has created a Nanoengineering Undergraduate Certificate Program (NUCP) that targets current engineering students as well as B.Sc. degree holders who wish to expand their educational background. Rather than creating a new degree program, the NUCP offers an accelerated and in-depth training on nanotechnology at the undergraduate level in the form of a certificate program. The Program seeks to meet the demands of Michigan’s largely manufacturing economy and also the high-tech industries currently settling in the state. The NUCP partners with Michigan companies to create an engineering curriculum that meets the industrial demands. The engineering faculty collaborate with faculty from political science and economics at WSU to conduct program evaluation.

The primary objective of the proposal is to create the NUCP for specialized undergraduate training in nanotechnology. Other objectives are: 1) to teach emerging technologies at the undergraduate level, 2) to train a new adaptive workforce, and 3) to retrain working engineers and professionals. In order to achieve these objectives, a certificate program consisting of four new courses have been created: 1) NEN 5000 Introduction to Nanotechnology and Nanomedicine, 2) NEN 5100 Nanoengineering Laboratory, 3) NEN 5200 Scale-down Engineering: from Engineered Systems to Nanotechnology, and 4) NEN 5300 Nanoengineering Research and Capstone Design. The courses have been taught by faculty members from different engineering departments with emphasis on integration of teaching and research, as well as cross-disciplinary teaching. The specific objective of NEN 5000 is to provide basic knowledge in nanotechnology, while that of NEN 5100 is to offer hands-on knowledge, in part by utilizing NSF-funded major research facilities for undergraduate teaching. NEN 5200 serves to enhance student learning of research-level materials by lectures that contrast traditional engineered systems to related nanosystems and nanodevices, and NEN 5300 provides an opportunity for students to complete individual research projects. Most of the course materials will be available online in order to accommodate part-time and working students.

Intellectual merit. The NUCP is transformative because it offers a unified curriculum in nanoengineering across traditional departmental boundaries and provides an opportunity to link the bulk to nanoscale materials properties, systems, and devices in a scale-down engineering pedagogy. The curriculum consists of integrative, multidisciplinary, laboratory, and research components. Laboratory modules on the preparation, characterization, and system design are built on faculty’s own research expertise. Major research instruments funded by the NSF MRI grants are used in laboratory teaching, in part by a virtual laboratory setup. The innovative course sequence enables students to move from familiar subjects to less familiar research-oriented subjects. The NUCP team has demonstrated commitment and experience in nanoengineering research and education and advising undergraduate and minority students.

Broader impacts. The NUCP provides a mechanism for undergraduate students to acquire specific knowledge and skills in nanoengineering beyond their traditional disciplinary training. The impacts on the undergraduate curriculum are as follows: 1) courses offering multidisciplinary training in nanoengineering have been created and integrated into one certificate program. 2) Existing research infrastructure is used in undergraduate education. 3) Undergraduate students obtain research-level career training. The NUCP addresses specific goals of the NSF NUE including: 1) to prepare the future workforce for emerging technologies, 2) to focus on relevance to systems and devices, and 3) to invigorate undergraduate engineering education by developing new teaching modules that cross traditional departmental and disciplinary boundaries.

Last Modified: 05/23/2018
Modified by: Guangzhao Mao