Introduction to Engineering Research - Wendy C. Crone Synthesis Lectures on Engineering, Science, and Technology

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with some helpful comments.”

       Student Perspective

      “I think the most crucial element in my development during these meetings was that with every passing week, I felt more and more comfortable with the research, eventually to the point where I could try to suggest explanations and various solutions to problems in conjunction with the same inputs from the other members of the meeting. Having my ideas considered in a setting with three other people with considerably more experience in the field was very rewarding. The collaborative effort of people from different backgrounds to develop solutions to a problem or explanations for a phenomenon has become one of my favorite elements of research.”

      You may be paid to do research (for instance as a research assistant or as hourly pay) or you may be doing research for credit. Either way, it is likely that there is some type of funding supporting your salary and/or the purchases of resources that you need to conduct the research. You should understand what the funding source is for the research you are pursuing. It may be a federal grant, an industry contract, institutional funds that your research mentor has at their disposal, or some other mechanism. There may be multiple funding mechanisms supporting the various projects and people involved in the research group.

      As a member of a research group, you also need to get to know the others engaged in the research group aside from your research mentor. Research groups come in many different sizes, from the small tight-knit groups to large international collaborations. There may be undergraduate researchers, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, scientists, and faculty members. Your research group may also be collaborating with other research groups. These people may be working directly with you, using similar or complementary techniques, sharing research space with you, or they may be working at a different location or on a project that does not overlap with yours. Regardless, it is important to know who the research group members are and how they are connected to the work you are undertaking.

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       ASSIGNMENT 2-8:INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT – MAP THE ORGANIZATION OF YOUR RESEARCH GROUP

      Create a visual depiction, or map, of the research you are currently working in (or planning to join). Talk with your research mentor and other lab members to understand what projects are underway, who are the people involved, and how the research is funded. You might depict one or more of the following.

      • A diagram of the funded projects showing how they are interrelated, who is working on each, and what funding supports each person/project.

      • For a highly collaborative group: this would include how the group collaborates with other individual researchers, research groups, and institutions across the ongoing projects.

      • For an experimental group: the layout of physical lab space, how the experiments are organized, who utilizes on each piece of equipment, and how they projects/people are funded.

      • For a computational group: the research projects that the group has going on and connections between the projects, people, and software being used/developed.

      1National Academy of Engineering, “NAE Grand Challenges for Engineering,” http://www.engineeringchallenges.org.

      2Seibert, S. E., Kraimer, M. L., and Crant, J. M., 2001. What do proactive people do? A longitudinal model linking proactive personality and career success. Personnel Psychology, 54(4), 845–874.

      3Poorman, M., 2019. GradHacker, “Hacking Grad School,” Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/gradhacker/hacking-grad-school.

      4Seibert, S. E., Kraimer, M. L., and Crant, J. M., 2001. What do proactive people do? A longitudinal model linking proactive personality and career success. Personnel Psychology, 54(4), 845–874.

      5National Academies Press, Understanding the Educational and Career Pathways of Engineers, 2018. https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25284/understanding-the-educational-and-career-pathways-of-engineers.

      6Council of Graduate Schools, “April 15 Resolution: Resolution Regarding Graduate Scholars, Fellows, Trainees, and Assistants,” http://cgsnet.org/april-15-resolution.

      7Doubleday, J., 2013. Earnings Gap Narrows, but College Education Still Pays, Report Says, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 7.

      8Council of Graduate Schools, 2013. “Open Doors with a Doctorate.”

      9Council of Graduate Schools, 2013. “Why Should I Get a Master’s Degree.”

      10Council of Graduate Schools, 2013. “Financing Graduate Education.”

      CHAPTER 3

       Becoming a Researcher

      Research groups can be set up in a variety of different ways and range in size from 1 to 100+. You may be working one-on-one with your research mentor or you may be working in more of a group setting where you meet with your research mentor along with others working on the same or related projects. In larger research groups you may find that there are researchers at a variety of different levels. This might include undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, engineers, scientists, and faculty members. In some cases, your most immediate research mentor may be someone at a level just above your own. For instance, you may be an undergraduate researcher working most directly with a graduate student mentor.

      Ultimately the responsibility for the research group, its direction, and the projects being pursued are determined by the lead faculty member or lead scientist/engineer, sometimes called the principal investigator or PI. This individual is also your research mentor (maybe you will think of this person as your Mentor with a capital M), but your interactions with this individual may be less frequent and may be in a group setting rather than one-on-one. You should not discount the others in the research group as they may provide you with invaluable information, advice, and mentoring that could prove to be important to your success.

       Student Perspective

      “I had some previous research experience at [a] National Lab. … I had a mentor and a co-mentor that were constantly guiding me. I would meet with them several times per week to discuss how progress was going and ask [any] questions that I had. [My] two mentors also had offices right down the hall from mine and had an open-door policy so I could stop in and ask anything if I got stuck. This was so helpful to the ease and speed of my workflow. I could work on my project and when I ran into a problem, I would try to solve it on my own first, but if I couldn’t figure it out, I could easily consult one of my mentors for help. Sometimes if they couldn’t figure out the problem, they would point me in the direction of other researchers around the lab. This was a neat experience to draw on the expertise of researchers from different groups. I got to meet new people and learn about what they were working on while also getting a new perspective on the problem I was originally trying to solve. Prior to coming to grad school, I had guessed that my advisor would be play a similar role as my mentors at [the National Lab]. This semester has taught me otherwise. I didn’t take into consideration the seemingly countless other obligations that grad school advisors have such as teaching, doing their own research, being active members of academic organizations which causes their time to be limited. Therefore, I do not have the same two-to-one relationship as I had at [the National Lab] which makes my work more independent. I think this is a good, and necessary step for me to take in my research career. This has made my problem solving skills much better and also has made me get to know the areas of expertise of the other students and staff members in my group. I’m learning who can possibly help me depending on the issue that I have run in to.”

       The Guides at Your Side

      I would be hard pressed to count the number of mentoring relationships

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