SPIRE-EIT 2024

SPIRE-EIT (Summer Program for Interdisciplinary Research and Education – Emerging Interface Technologies) at Iowa State University is a 10-week interdisciplinary summer experience for 10 undergraduates that integrates research and education in emerging interface technologies. Since the site’s inception in 2006, students’ commitment to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields has been demonstrated, as well as producing research publications. Students are provided with classroom training and gain hands-on experience using cutting-edge instruments, equipment, computers and cyberinfrastructure. Classes in computer programming and graphics, interface design, human-computer interaction, research skills, team skills, and ethics occupy approximately one third of the students’ time. In an unusual structure that is focused on building a community of practice, students conduct interdisciplinary research projects in groups of two or three, with all students co-located in Iowa State’s VRAC Research Center. Each group interacts with VRAC graduate students under the supervision of VRAC faculty. The research projects are presented at an end-of-the summer campus-wide research symposium in the form of posters, demos, and a five-page research paper. Frequently the students present their research at research conferences later during the school year.