By Tom Henderson
Small Times Senior Writer
Aug. 10, 2001 — Sandia National Laboratories is inviting the nation’s top science and engineering students to come to Albuquerque, N.M., to work on small tech projects in its world-class laboratories and clean rooms.
The program, called the MESA Institute, has been
 |
| The MESA project has a “major brick and mortar component,” including up to 400,000 square feet of space and 25,000 square feet of clean rooms. |
Over the next few years, the institute’s director, Regan Stinnett, hopes to expand the program to serve more than 200 students. Those accepted would be paid “competitive professional salaries, much more than they’ve ever made as students,” to work for periods ranging from three months to three years, Stinnett said.
MESA stands for Microsystems and Engineering Sciences Applications and is a $370 million project that aims to build the world’s premier research and design center in microsystems. It is the largest construction project ever undertaken at Sandia and is scheduled to be operational by 2005 or 2006.
Though MESA, itself, exists only on design drawings, the institute it lends its name to is up and running.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) approved a conceptual design for the MESA complex last November. In December, $20 million was approved to begin architectural and engineering design work.
Congress has yet to approve the bulk of the funding for MESA, but Sandia officials said they don’t expect major problems.
“The MESA project is a commitment by DOE to support microsystems technology,” said Thomas Zipperian, a manager with MESA. “It’s a capital project with a major brick and mortar component,” including up to 400,000 square feet of space and 25,000 square feet of clean rooms.
As for the institute, he said, “It helps us with our strategic staffing and it’s also a way of having MESA have more of a national impact.”
Stinnett and Zipperian said the institute will benefit Sandia by providing a steady stream of talented researchers and serving as a recruiting tool. It will benefit students by providing them with a paycheck while they do work that leads to their Ph.D.s and giving them access to equipment and laboratories superior to what they have on many campuses.
It will benefit professors and universities by given giving them a partner that can help them win research grants from other federal agencies.
Sarah Leming, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering at the University of Oklahoma, is six weeks into a 15-month stint at Sandia. Leming is working on sensors to detect overweight trucks as they pass over bridges.
She said the Sandia experience is influencing her career choices.
“I was going to go into industry for a few years, and be a college professor,” she said. “But I see the perks here. It’s real appealing. The facilities are way beyond anything I’ve been around by a long shot.”
She said she is now considering a career at Sandia. “One of the biggest benefits of the program is the possibility of being able to stay on and work here in the lab when I finish school.”
Jeremy Rogers, a Ph.D. student in optical sciences at the University of Arizona, is at Sandia just for the summer, working on a miniature MEMS-based microscope that could have applications in health care.
His tour of duty was arranged by his academic adviser, Michael Descour, who had done postdoctoral work at Sandia.
“When the chance came to come out and work with this equipment, I had to jump on it. It gets you better acquainted with the tools and the technology. So far it’s been a wonderful experience,” said Rogers, who plans to return to Sandia for a second stint.
“One, it’s a chance to work for a government research institute, which is very different from working in a university lab, with all the equipment and resources. Two, this is definitely a MEMS center, so that’s great. Three, you meet and work with people who do this for a living. I hate to use the buzzword ‘networking,’ but, well, you do network.
“This is a nice combination of having plenty of budget and resources and working with great people and doing great R&D without having to worry about short-term profits the way you do in business.”
“To send a student there for a whole summer is an outstanding opportunity,” said Descour, an associate professor in optical sciences. “To see research on the cutting edge and do work with state-of-the-art equipment — I can hardly think of a better place to be.
“Jeremy’s going to come back [to Tucson] significantly better trained. We’ll be able to use what Jeremy has learned on projects here when he returns. He’s the trailblazer. I’m optimistic I’ll be able to get more students who will be more than happy to go to Sandia next summer. And the work they’ll do and projects they’ll work on will make them at least a notch better.”
Other universities participating in the test phase are the University of Colorado, University of California, Los Angeles, University of Florida, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Purdue University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, New Mexico State University and University of Wisconsin.
Professors who want to send students to Sandia need to visit the Web site for instructions. They then submit a three-page proposal that Sandia officials promise to respond to within four weeks. Students must be U.S. citizens.
“The MESA Institute is open to any professor or university doing credible work in microsystems who wishes to approach us,” Zipperian said.
In addition to pay, the institute will pair students with staff mentors and provide them with housing. It will pay their travel expenses to Albuquerque and to bring in their professors periodically.
“We’re trying to establish long-term partnerships with professors,” Zipperian said. “Partnerships occur between individuals and not between organizations.”
Zipperian said the institute would eventually like to include the private sector in its university partnership.
“Here’s how it might work,” Zipperian said. “The University of Michigan cares a lot about RF (radio frequency) MEMS. Raytheon cares a lot about RF MEMS. Sandia cares a lot about RF MEMS. It might be possible for Raytheon to pay for a professor’s involvement and for a student’s work in a defined activity using Sandia resources.
“It would be a truly cooperative research agreement, with a well-defined structure in place to share the intellectual property.”
Currently, Sandia’s Microsystems Science, Technology and Components Division has an annual budget of $114 million and a staff of 500 scientists and researchers.
Its Microelectronics Development Laboratory and Compound Semiconductor Research Laboratory are known for designing some of the world’s best microsystems, MEMS and photonic devices.
null
CONTACT THE AUTHOR:
Tom Henderson at [email protected] or call 734-528-6292.