REU Site: Undergraduate Advanced Manufacturing Research for Biomedical Applications

More than 100,000 Americans are awaiting organ transplants, and many more require replacement of damaged tissues such as bone, cartilage, or skin. Advanced manufacturing technologies, including robotic bioprinting and precision metal fabrication, offer promising pathways toward personalized tissue scaffolds and implants. This Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) will engage 30 undergraduates (10 per summer over three years) in a 10-week, hands-on research program focused on advanced manufacturing for biomedical applications. Students will participate in hypothesis-driven research, receive structured mentoring in research methods, literature review, and research ethics, and explore careers through professional development that includes entrepreneurial mindset training developed with the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN). Participants will present their research at RIT's annual undergraduate research symposium. Required mentor training, aligned with NSF best practices (S-STEM), will strengthen future mentoring by faculty and graduate mentors, while an alumni network will support participants' continued professional development. Recruitment will be conducted nationally with broad outreach to students from a wide range of institution types. The program prepares students for research and careers aligned with NSF priorities in advanced manufacturing and biotechnology. The focus of this REU Site is advanced manufacturing for biomedical applications, with student research spanning bioink material characterization, robot-assisted bioprinting of tissue scaffolds, surface engineering of metallic implants, and functional testing of printed bioelectronics on tissue-mimicking platforms. Faculty mentors across engineering, materials science, and biomedical engineering will offer projects in each area, and students will work as a cohort to build connections across disciplines. Each project is organized around clearly defined hypotheses, sub-tasks, and expected outcomes, enabling students to take ownership of specific research questions within the 10-week program. A KEEN Rising Star further strengthens the program by providing mentor training grounded in KEEN's entrepreneurial mindset framework, which students experience through a structured communication and professional development sequence culminating in a value-proposition pitch of their research. Mentors predefine feasible project scopes and incorporate scheduling flexibility and equipment redundancy to keep research on track despite the complexities of advanced fabrication systems, such as six-axis robotic bioprinters. Students will be selected based on academic performance, research interest, and demonstrated potential for research, with broad national recruitment across a wide range of colleges and universities. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.