Quality of Life Technology Center Receives Funding for Research Experience for Undergraduates and Veterans Transition Program

The Quality of Life Technology Center, an Engineering Research Center (QoLT ERC) funded by National Science Foundation to transform the lives of people with reduced functional capabilities due to aging or disability through intelligent devices and systems, is pleased to announce that its Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program has been funded by the National Science Foundation for another three years. The renewal of the Quality of Life Technology Research Experience for Undergraduates Site is a tremendous accomplishment for our education and outreach program. This demonstrates that we have achieved our objectives for the first four years of the program and continues to build upon the successful foundation of the complementary American Student Placements in Rehabilitation Engineering (ASPIRE) REU program. This will allow us to host twice the number of students (compared with just ASPIRE alone) and create a cohort of students engaged in assistive technology research across Pitt and CMU.

The QoLT Center itself is an attraction to students—it is a collaboration between Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics and Human Computer Interaction Institutes and University of Pittsburgh Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology and Institute on Aging.  For QoLT systems to be successfully accepted and adopted, they must be developed so that they will be integrated in all contexts of life—body, personal, and community. The QoLT adoption strategy stems from two important beliefs: diversity in the incoming student body makes these students particularly valuable to the researchers precisely because this technology is meant for a diverse audience; and the theme of quality of life knows no boundaries of race, gender, or function and therefore provides ample personal connection across many backgrounds. Therefore, recruitment efforts are placed on undergraduate students from traditional engineering disciplines and from rehabilitation science, psychology and clinical science who work with engineers to ensure viability and adoption of the new QoLT systems. Preference is given to students who: 1) have not had exposure to QoLT research previously; 2) are from underrepresented groups; and 3) express an interest in pursuing a career or advanced education in QoLT.  Altogether, 46 students have participated through a one-year NSF REU supplement in 2007 and a three-year REU Site awarded in 2008. Targeted recruitment efforts have resulted in a high representation of minority participants including 41% female students, 35% African-American and Hispanic students, and 20% of students with disabilities. Post-internship follow-up efforts showed that 60% of 20 students who have graduated are pursuing advanced degrees, four of whom are currently pursuing graduate programs at Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh.

The objectives of the QoLT REU program are to:

1.      Enroll a highly motivated and diverse group of undergraduate students and excite them about technology and engineering as disciplines and as tools to be influenced and authored, especially with respect to helping people and improving society.

2.      Engage undergraduate students in cross-disciplinary research in QoLT to gain an understanding of how to relate human functions (physiological, physical, social and cognitive) to the design of intelligent devices and systems that aid and interact with people.

3.      Increase the number of undergraduates who are well-prepared for graduate studies and professional careers in QoLT-related fields.

4.      Employ targeted recruitment efforts to achieve exemplary participation of underrepresented groups; in particular, students with disabilities and students from racial and ethnic minority groups.

The success of the QoLT REU program has led to the development of ELeVATE, a program designed to assist in veterans’ transition to college.  The program was funded in 2010 and will begin its first cohort in the summer of 2011. The foundation created by the QoLT REU program which has proven to not only increase students’ self-efficacy, but also confirm interest and engagement in engineering and technological disciplines through career exposure activities will be modeled. Supplementary workshops will provide the necessary remediation to succeed in the program and beyond.  New activities created for veteran students, especially with a focus on vocational and rehabilitation support, will prepare this population for their successful transition to college. The REU mechanism which in addition to the aforementioned benefits, develops a support network for students, will be expanded through the academic year for the veteran participants. Study groups, benefits assistance, and counseling opportunities will supplement the experiential learning aspects of the program. The activities are designed to increase self-efficacy and outcome expectations which will encourage participants to apply to engineering programs. Once enrolled, support activities will help participants achieve their performance sub-goals and persist through engineering degree programs which will ultimately result in enrolling in graduate school or obtaining an engineering career. 

Though ELeVATE will only begin in the summer of 2011, its foundations are deep rooted in the success of QoLT’s REU program which has advanced underrepresented students through the STEM pipeline and delivered a promising model.  Assessment efforts developed through the REU program will be adapted to evaluate this cohort with the goal of contributing towards the bodies of literature surrounding experiential learning, veterans in STEM education, and retention and promotion of underrepresented students in STEM. Facilitating the programs collaboratively is in itself a best practice; it allows for an enhanced cohort, peer-to-peer mentoring, and maximization of resources for a sustainable training program designed to increase the retention and promotion of underrepresented undergraduates in STEM disciplines.

For more information and to apply for our programs, please visit www.qolt.pitt.edu or contact Mary Goldberg at mrh35@pitt.edu.