The Summer Institute (SI) will assist professors at liberal arts colleges in introducing materials science and engineering to their undergraduate curricula. SI will bring together MIT faculty, faculty from undergraduate liberal arts colleges, and some MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering graduate students to present interdisciplinary material in a modular, case study format and introduce the materials science and engineering concepts to professors who normally do not have background in the field of materials research or engineering.
The PI will attempt deliberately to broaden the education base for materials research, bringing the perspectives and methodologies of materials science and engineering to a much broader and diverse public audience that is usually present at engineering institutions.