Link to recording of informational presentation from Fall 2024

Project Overview 

This project aims to provide undergraduate students in the Southern California region with research experiences in Mexico. It is being led by Professor Ryan McGorty at the University of San Diego. 

Students who apply and are selected to participate will receive a $6400 stipend, free travel to and from the research sites in Mexico, and free housing while in Mexico. Students will spend 8 weeks in Mexico conducting research from mid-June to mid-August. Six students will be selected to participate each year, with three students living and working together in Monterrey, MX and three in León, MX. 

Students from the U.S. will conduct research over the summer at either the Center for Research in Advanced Materials (Centro de Investigación en Materiales Avanzados, CIMAV) in Monterrey, Mexico or the University of Guanajuato in León, Mexico. Working with research mentors in Mexico and the mentors in Southern California, students will take various approaches to study the physics and chemistry of soft materials. Such approaches include using computer simulations to study fundamental aspects of soft materials and using 3D printers to apply our scientific understanding of soft materials to the design and use of new inks and resins. Students taking part in this research and receiving mentorship from U.S. and Mexican scientists will be prepared to cooperate with diverse teams across borders and to become leaders of a globally engaged scientific workforce.

Projects will include investigating the rheology of nanocellulose and cellulose composites for use in 3D printing applications, quantifying the translational and rotational diffusion of anisotropic colloids to better understand transport and microrheology in complex environments, and developing computer simulations of colloidal particles in external fields. These projects will lead to new analysis techniques in microrheology and optical microscopy and will advance the development of inks for 3D printing.