Faculty ProjectsNew Programs and Technologies for Undergraduates in Design, Technology, and Research (DTR)
Project Manager
Haoqi Zhang, Associate Professor, Computer Science
Amount Requested
$15,000
Summary
Design, Technology, and Research (DTR) is a Computer Science and Segal Design initiative that empowers undergraduates to drive cutting-edge research that shape new experiences with people and technology. As a program and model for undergraduate research, DTR prepares students for careers in engineering, design, innovation, and research by providing authentic practice. The effort embodies McCormick’s mission to engage students in the creation, exploration, and application of engineering and scientific principles to solve challenging problems, produce new knowledge, and advance society. DTR also aligns with Northwestern’s strategic focus on Design and the advancement of inventive and rigorous models of education.
Through 9 years of our highly successful program:
- We mentored 140 students (40% women) to self-direct complex work.
- DTR students place at top tech and design companies; in a recent survey, an astonishing 40% of DTR undergrads place at Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook.
- Students iteratively designed, built, and tested 50+ new socio-technical systems; they have applied for and received $70,000+ in outside funding, including 60+ URG grants.
- 20+ student papers are published at premier HCI conferences; students won 8 research competitions nationally and internationally, including 1st and 2nd place at ACM CHI Student Research Competition in 2022.
- We publicly released the DTR documentary short film, Forward.
With this renewal Murphy Society grant, we aim to continue building on this success by connecting our undergraduates to those most interested in our program and the successes we have already had: our outstanding alumni and leading faculty at top universities who wish to use our model to mentor students. This will further enrich and advance our learning space and community for our undergraduates. Moreover, the funding will allow us to update our technical infrastructure so we can continue to push on the latest advances in technologies.
Planned Activities/Investments
For academic year 2023-2024, I propose 2 major initiatives:
Programs to Connect to DTR Alumni and Outside Faculty
We now have 100+ DTR alumni working at top tech companies (Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook), leading startups, and teaching aspiring designers and technologists. Our alumni network is strong, and before last year, we hadn’t designed programming to connect our current students to alumni for job/career advice, mentoring, forming social connections, etc. Such efforts can provide our undergraduates with social and professional connections that serve them well beyond their time at Northwestern. This year, we plan to continue the programming we designed last year with Murphy funding and to create new programming, including
- Hosting an alumni dinner
- Hosting alumni DTR workshops, in which alumni teach and share relevant skills learned in industry
- Creating a DTR professional program for networking, job search, professional development, and coaching
- Involving local alumni in current DTR social events
- Hosting a larger-scale event for DTR’s 10 year anniversary.
Additionally, we will develop programs to connect DTR students to faculty interested in our model for training students. Our efforts to share our model for training has not only helped to establish Northwestern and McCormick as leaders in undergraduate design research education, but also connected our students to leading faculty at MIT, Harvard, UMichigan, and other schools. With the seed funding sought, we’ll host social programs that connect our undergraduates to faculty through faculty visits through the Agile Research University program, and through DTR documentary screenings (see forward.movie).
Updating Outdated Technologies
DTR’s licensed software requires updating. We are also looking to acquire new AR/VR technologies for new student projects.
Impact
DTR is structured to realize McCormick undergraduates’ potential for developing novel technologies and creative solutions through design, engineering, and research. By giving students the independence to drive their own projects while providing the program structure, mentoring, and community to promote productivity, learning, and collaboration, DTR develops students’ innovation self-efficacy, provides students with practical experiences in design, research, engineering, and communication, and connects students to a larger community of peers, alumni, and faculty. Specific to this proposal, we will evaluate the impact of our programming with alumni and outside faculty by conducting surveys and semi-structured interviews to understand the impact of these programs on undergraduates' learning and growth, career planning, and well-being. We will craft survey and interview questions using existing literature, such as those created got evaluate the effectives of mentoring relationships (e.g., Berk et al., 2005). We will also continue to evaluate the impact of DTR overall through semi-structured interviews, self-assessment questionnaires, and pre- and post- surveys to assess student learning and development outcomes. We will also use quantitative measures of participation, retention, products, publications, student diversity, and student internship/job placement to evaluate DTR as an effective and scalable model for promoting undergraduate contributions to design, innovation, and research.
Sustainability
My goal is to establish DTR as a long-term, sustainable program for supporting undergraduate design, research, and technical innovation. The core approach is to use Murphy funding as "incubator" funds to start new initiatives, fund small capital investments, and produce early results that are then used to apply for larger external funds. So far this model has shown tremendous success; I have earned 4 NSF grants as PI through the incubator projects in DTR.
Additionally, with matching funds and commitment from the Computer Science department and the Segal Design Institute to support DTR's regular operations, we intend to use the Murphy funding to test out and refine new ideas, and to then integrate them into DTR's regular operations over time.
Additionally, we will work to gather outside funding through:
- NSF REU sites proposals
- Gift funds from tech companies such as Microsoft, Google, Adobe, Facebook, and Yahoo
- Gift funds from donors
- Northwestern Office of Undergraduate Research
Deliverables
The major deliverables for academic year 2023-2024 include:
- Alumni-undergraduate programs, including dinners, workshops, mentoring network, and social events
- New faculty-undergraduate networking opportunities, enabled through the "Agile Research University" program and the DTR documentary
- DTR students designing, developing, and evaluating 10+ cutting-edge technologies and applications, with 15+ students participating in demos, presentations, poster sessions, and student research competitions locally and at national/international conferences and workshops
Previous Projects
With our 2022-2023 Murphy funding, we successfully connected our undergraduates to our outstanding alumni and outside faculty who wishes to use our model to mentor students. Specifically: We established an alumni committee and interviewed alumni to better understand their interests, desires, and needs in connecting with current students. Using what we learned, we then designed and hosted DTR events throughout the year to involve alumni through studio visits, hackathons, open houses, and end-of-year dinners. DTR alumni also hosted additional workshops and events for the larger Northwestern community during their visits.
Some alum visit highlights include:
- Jason Friedman ’22 (Microsoft) and Hang Yin ’22 (Northwestern Robotics) visited studio to host a discussion on how skills from DTR translate into the tech workplace and graduate schools.
- Sarah Lim ’18 (UC Berkeley) hosted conversations with Women-in-Computing and students in Computer Science on life after graduation
- 11 DTR alums attended our end-of-year dinner celebration with our current students
- We organized a DTR field trip to visit the HCI group at the University of Chicago, in which our undergraduate and masters students interacted directly with their PhD students and faculty.
- Joseph Jay Williams (University of Toronto) and Elizabeth Hunter (Washington University of Saint Louis) visited our studio and spoke with our students
- I wrote and disseminated the first ever DTR annual letter, which shares DTR’s learning culture with other faculty, designers, researchers, and educators.
We are leading in CS and design research education, and sharing what we are doing with the world. Current DTR students found these and other events to be extremely helpful for their thinking about their careers and lives beyond Northwestern, and connecting to the larger HCI research community outside of Northwestern. Moreover, students reported that these events helped to strengthen the DTR community, and also their connection to Northwestern CS and Design. We know that the deepening of these communities and connections can be extremely powerful. A direct example this year is DTR students Amy Guo and Li Kang Tan being honored as 2 of the 3 outstanding Weinberg CS seniors this year, for their outstanding contributions to the larger CS community at Northwestern (for organizing WildHacks, and advancing undergraduate peer mentoring, respectively).
Budget Overview
Alumni and Faculty Programs:
- $4,000 Technology Update. New technologies for prototyping (e.g., Apple's AR headset) ($3,000) Software licenses (e.g., Omnigraffle, FIGMA, etc.) ($1,000).
- $7,000 DTR-hosted alumni dinners, social events, workshops
- DTR 10 year anniversary dinner event for 60 participants ($2,000)
- Workshops and social events ($5,000), including 2 events/quarter for 3 quarters.
- These estimates are based on $500 per hackathon, workshop, or social event for supplies, food, and refreshments; and travel supplements for 4 alumni visitors ($2000).
- $2,000 DTR-hosted faculty/student events: Quarterly faculty-student social events; covering additional days of travel beyond what is covered by current seminar programs for faculty visits; and costs associated with screening the DTR documentary.
- $2,000 Supplemental funds for students to connect with outside faculty and students at conferences: Cover conference registration costs for 2-3 students per quarter at $300 per student.
Total: $15,000
Matching Funds
The following matching funds are expected (and were secured and provided last year at these levels or above):
- NU Computer Science ($3,000 for DTR’s operational budget)
- NU Segal Design ($3,000 for DTR’s operational budget
- Northwestern Undergraduate Research Grants Office ($5,000)
- NSF Cyberlearning Grant ($4,000 devoted for user studies, stipends, and travel)