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A team of ������Ƶ faculty members has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for $398,946 to build meaningful partnerships among faculty and industry, resulting in increased research engagement and the establishment of an internship program for graduate students.

The project is called Enabling Meaningful External Research Growth in Emergent Technologies (EMERGE). It is designed to strengthen partnerships with local industry to build the capacity to conduct high-impact, industry-relevant research drawing on faculty members’ expertise in their disciplines and to provide opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to learn how to conduct research.

“Overall, the project will have a positive impact on Kettering and benefit our faculty and student body as a whole rather than supporting one specific research project or initiative, which is what makes this program unique. It will also have an impact beyond Kettering and on innovation in our region,” said Dr. Diane Peters, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Principal Investigator on the project. “For undergraduates, they may be involved in research projects initiated as a result of these activities.”

Dr. Scott Grasman, Dean of the College of Engineering, and Dr. Javad Baqersad, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, are co-principal investigators.

“Many academic projects solve fundamental problems but are never used in real-world applications,” Baqersad said. “This grant aims to create a partnership between ������Ƶ and the industry to help bring academic research to real-world applications. The partnerships with the local innovation ecosystem will be relevant to ������Ƶ’s heritage and allow us to build on our key research areas.”

Grasman said EMERGE is important because it helps increase research capacity at a primarily undergraduate institution like Kettering.

������Ƶ is partnering with three other universities on the project: University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas; University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado; and Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina. The universities formed their partnership through a series of NSF workshops during the proposal process.

“Part of the purpose of the workshops was for us to get to know the other universities and their teams, talk about mutual challenges and areas where we were complementary and, ultimately, form cohorts to submit proposals,” Peters said. 

Each university has an individual plan, but the universities will work together to establish a website, share best practices and resources, and conduct a project evaluation.

The Kettering team will plan and initiate an industry research summit, provide opportunities for professors to work with industry partners on technical problems within their expertise, and establish an internship program for graduate students integrated into their educational experiences that supports their research.

Work will begin Oct. 1 and continue through September 2026.

The grant is part of the NSF’s Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP), the agency’s first new directorate in more than 30 years. According to TIP's website, the directorate formed a few months after Congress passed the “CHIPS and Science Act” to advance U.S. competitiveness through investments that accelerate the development of key technologies and address pressing societal and economic challenges.

This is the second significant grant the NSF has awarded to a Kettering faculty member this year. Dr. Demet Usanmaz, Assistant Professor of Physics, received a $249,999 grant in June to increase clean energy generation by designing new thermoelectric materials that convert waste heat to electricity. 

������Ƶ has received more than $2 million in research grants this year. Since 2016, the University has received more than $16 million in sponsored program funding.