Projects

Research Proposal

The research proposal project for this course consists of three parts:

Assignment and evaluation will be based primarily on a research proposal and presentation. Each graduate student will prepare a literature review on a topic related to bio-inspired structures and/or nanotechnology. Students must confirm the topic area of the literature review with the course instructors by Lec #7. The topic area may not be the subject of the graduate student's thesis research.

The research proposal should:

• Summarize the state of knowledge of the topic,
• Identify critical unresolved science and/or technology issues, and
• Propose specific new research, for a 3 year period, to resolve these critical issues.

The proposal text should be organized as follows:

• Cover page (with title of proposal and names of co-authors)
• Executive summary (1 page)
• Introduction and background (7-10 pages)
• Critical unresolved issues (5 pages)
• Proposed research (10 pages)
• References (numbered sequentially as they are cited in the text)

The proposal must be typed in Times New Roman font (12 point) with double spacing and with one inch margins (top, bottom, sides). Each page should be numbered at the bottom center of the page. References should be based largely on peer-reviewed journal, book, or patent citations (i.e., the reference list should not rely significantly on information obtained from Web sites) and should be presented in the paper reference formats. The proposals are due Lec #21.

Each graduate student will also prepare a 25-minute presentation of their research and literature review, to be conducted at the end of the semester (Lec #23). The presentations must be prepared as power point slides. Five minutes of questioning will follow each presentation.