In Year 1, the CMI held its first CMI Affiliates Day, which brought together CMI-MRSEC participants and industry partners to enrich technical advancements, student development, and industry engagement. The summer timing allows for inclusion of REU and REY members, giving the event the largest possible breadth of participants and opportunity for engagement. The Year 2 CMI Affiliates Day will be a multi-day event, including technical presentations from MRSEC faculty and Industry affiliates, poster sessions featuring > 40 students, career planning/development workshops, and a career panel.
The CMI Affiliates Day is both an opportunity to broadly identify needs and challenges in materials research as well as an opportunity to recruit and to establish specific individual partnerships.
Affiliates Day brings members of both IRGs in contact with several distinct industrial partners. These interactions help CMI students in terms of professional networking. CMI PIs benefit from the extended discussions that lead into more substantive collaborations and project ideas. Industrial partners value the access to new research advances and to high quality prospective recruits.
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