Leadership and Professional Development
MPACT's leadership effort focuses on developing technical and professional skills, encouraging self-motivated continuous learning and professional development, as well as enhancing the development of oral communication skills of researchers between lay and technical persons. The technical leadership of graduate and undergraduate researchers occurs through the research experience where three skill areas of design, fabrication and high speed test are developed. The professional leadership is developed through student and industrial partnership experiences which focus on the improving technical and people communication skills, project management, and people leadership. Student partnerships between graduate-undergraduate student pairs are used to provide researchers with an opportunity develop teaching and management skills needed for academia and industry. Industrial partnerships with industry and government researchers are used to provide technical interactions and feedback as well as networking opportunities.
Community Education
MPACT's community education effort focuses on summer outreach campus programs for undergraduates and off-campus community programs. The on-campus programs provide research opportunities for undergraduates including students from ethnic minority groups, women, and non-research institutions. The off-campus programs include local area high school presentations and Minnesota Science Museum events. Through these activities, MPACT researchers are able to use their technical skills to develop “experience level”-appropriate research projects to educate to future scholars, work in diverse research environment, develop and exercise their creative spirit, as well as give-back to the community through technology education.