Students Graduate from GTMI’s Summer Advanced Manufacturing Program

Ten students, including a U.S. Navy veteran, graduated from the 2022 Research Experience for Student Veterans in Advanced Manufacturing and Entrepreneurship (REVAMP) summer program. This student and veteran-focused program is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and hosted each summer by the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI). GTMI serves as a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) site for NSF.

The leader of this REVAMP REU education and work force development (EWD) program is Billyde Brown, Ph.D., EWD director at GTMI and senior research faculty member. Throughout the year, Brown’s role is to create strong partnerships among industry, government, and academia in manufacturing research, development, and deployment while acquiring and managing sponsored research programs. Chuck Zhang, the Harold E. Smalley Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and a GTMI-affiliated faculty, serves as the principal investigator of the REVAMP REU program.

Students in the 2022 summer cohort explored a variety of manufacturing research projects with faculty and graduate student mentors from Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering including ceramic 3D printing for bioabsorbable orthopedic implants, metal 3D printing of thixotropic alloys, wireless electrochemical biosensors for bioreactor process monitoring, machine learning and neural networks for optimization of 3D printing and maker-space utilization, slot-die process for large-area polymer coatings, nanowire production, wood composites for green and energy efficient buildings, and microfluidic devices for cell media replacement.

According to participant Valeria Carrasquillo, “I had the opportunity to be a student in the REVAMP Program where I worked with many amazing people and learned a lot through the research.” She is an undergraduate at the University of South Florida majoring in biomedical engineering.

Previous students have performed fundamental research projects in advanced manufacturing topic areas such as additive and hybrid manufacturing, composite joining and repair, cell therapy manufacturing, robotic machining, integrated computational materials engineering, Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, data analytics for adaptive manufacturing, and nanoscale 3D printing.

REVAMP’s major program activities include a seminar series covering a broad array of manufacturing-related topics presented by Georgia Tech faculty and graduate students, external manufacturing plant tours, experiential learning classes on the fundamentals of evidence-based entrepreneurship provided by Georgia Tech’s VentureLab and/or Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), a panel discussion from successful minority business enterprise clients of the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) Center in Atlanta, and three oral presentations delivered by students to demonstrate their research progress.

A new program element started in 2019 that offered a student veteran orientation, panel discussions, luncheon events, and tours of Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) facilities both on the main campus and Marietta locations that were facilitated together with GTRI veteran faculty and the Georgia Tech Veterans Resource Center director. REVAMP is one of the premier REU programs in the nation for advanced manufacturing research and entrepreneurship training for undergraduate student veterans.

“For the past ten weeks, I have been a part of the National Science Foundation (NSF) REVAMP-REU [program] at Georgia Tech. I worked with Dr. Mark Losego, Dr. Nicolas Somers, and Dr. Alejandro Montón Zarazaga on optimizing the ceramic printing process. I also had the opportunity to work with Brandy Nagel on connecting research to entrepreneurship using the NSF I-Corp model. I am incredibly thankful that I was able to be part of such an amazing program,” said Betsy Moore, a student at Washington and Lee University studying integrated engineering with biology.

This year’s REVAMP-REU 10-week summer program was held from May 25 – August 3 at GTMI located on the Georgia Tech campus.

Students worked under the supervision of different faculty mentors to complete a research project centered on cutting-edge manufacturing science and technology. They also received entrepreneurship training by conducting customer discovery interviews to support a hypothetical product related to their research. As a bonus, eligible students received on-campus housing, $500 towards travel, and a $5,000 stipend.

Congratulations to these student graduates (in bold text) of the summer 2022 REVAMP REU program:

Angela Li
Project: “Mechanical Characterization of Silica Microcapsules for Nanowire Production”
Research mentors: Calib Lanier, Michael A. Filler

Shannan Merced Moore
Project: “Strain-induced Refinement of Grain Size in 3D Printed Zinc Alloys”
Research mentors: Sairam Jaishankar, Dongang Yao

Cobe Smart
Project: “Multi-functional Multi-layer Film Coating on Roll-to-Roll Manufacturing System”
Research mentors: Minwoo Jung, Tequila Harris

Elizabeth (Betsy) Moore
Project: “New Innovative Processes for Additive Manufacturing of Ceramics”
Research mentors: Nicolas Somners, Alejandro Montón Zarazaga, Mark Losego

Kweku White
Project: “Machine Learning to Improve Makerspace Safety and Accessibility”
Research mentor: Amit Jariwala

Owen Shi (and Luka M.)
Project: “Gaussian Mixture Model Multiphysics Simulation for Physics-constrained Neural Network in Additive Manufacturing”
Research mentors: Luka Malashkhia, Jungin Kim, and Yan Wang

Ruoyu (Carl) Li
Project: “A Biosensor for Automating Real-time Therapeutic Cell Growth”
Research mentors: Zhaonan (Zeke) liu, Chuck Zhang

Valeria Carrasquillo
Project: “Wireless Electrochemical Sensor Capsule for Real-time Monitoring in Bioreactors
Research mentors: Aekansh Goel, Eric Vogel, and Billyde Brown

Corinne Drabenstott
Project: “Analysis of Mixing in a Microfluidic Device for Cell Buffer Exchange”
Research mentors: Steven Swingle, Avi Gupta, Todd Sulchek

Tyrel Keener
Project: “Wood-Based Composite for Thermal Management of Buildings”
Research mentors: Yongsong Huang, Akanksha Menon, Kyriaki Kalaitzidou