K–12 Outreach

In 2019, we joined UD’s Women in Engineering outreach program at a local New Castle Middle School, Serviam Girls Academy, whose mission is to take girls from low-income houses and give them the education they need to succeed in high school and beyond. Working with Trevor Foresta, ECE undergraduate student and Julia Schneider, a post-doctoral researcher from the Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Sciences, we developed a module showing ECE’s critical role in neuroimaging technology and analysis for their enrichment program during their enrichment hour (4-5 pm on Wednesday). Julia provided slides and enthusiasm on current and past sensors and systems to measure the brains operation. Trevor assembled and tested the OpenBCI headset while still a first-year engineering student.

In 2020, Trevor and I (along with other volunteers) hosted a lunchtime activity booth at the “Engineering Your Tomorrow” event held at Delaware Tech Community College in Georgetown, DE. The Sussex County STEM Alliance organized this outreach event with the purpose “to expose, mentor and teach our County’s diverse young girls the basic fundamentals of science and engineering through high interest STEM activities, while showing them… “STEM IS FUN”. After helping with the entomology experiments in the morning, I set up the booth that showcased ECE’s critical role in biomedical engineering with a live demonstration and interactive handouts. Thanks to UD’s Erin Sparks for inviting us to this event.

Our initial outreach efforts were recognized by being one of five short-listed groups for the Neural Engineering Community Award at the 2021 Neural Engineering Workshop (NER'21), a biennial conference hosted by the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society. The award was for outstanding contributions to the mission of inclusion and diversity. Congratulations to the winners! We will increase our impact and efforts in 2021–2022.

June 7th, 2022

Alex and César volunteered at our exhibit “What do the electric waves in your brain tell us?” during STEAM Day organized by Project Brain Light. There were 55 seventh grade students in attendance at this event from A.I. duPont Middle School in Wilmington, Delaware. For the event, César made an illustrative handout.

June 23rd, 2022

Alex lead a morning module “Read Someone’s Mind” at the UD ECE summer camp “Make Smart Stuff”. The module covered brain-computer interfaces, artificial intelligence (AI), and the intersection between those technologies and ECE.

April 4th and 5th, 2023

César, Alex, and I volunteered at the STEAM Day again with A.I. duPont Middle School students. We handed out ECE custom printed circuit boards and engaged them in demonstrations. Then the next day we discussed the intersection of AI, electrical and computer engineering, and neuroscience at Delaware Technical Student Association’s 45th Annual STEM Conference.

July 7th, 2023

CNIEL road show. Alex, Justin, Isabel, and I were invited to develop and present a module in 45-minute sessions for each grade throughout a day as part of “STEAM Day at Thomas Edison Charter School” (K–7th grades) as part of the Four Youth summer program. Along with live demonstrations of a wireless EEG headset and visualization software set-up, we literally sparked interest by having a Tesla coil, wireless communication of audio, investigated static charge, and discussed the capabilities and limitations of neuroimaging and AI to read minds.

April 9th, 2024

In our third STEAM Day event with A.I. duPont Middle School students, César, Alex, Austin Meek, and I combined forces with ECE’s Professor Fouad Kiamilev. Students made shocking discoveries about the STEM careers!

Summer 2024

I held 10 weekly research discussions over Zoom on mini-projects focused on “Brain+AI” with three 11th-grade students and their guardians.

September 9th, 2024

While well beyond K-12, I presented my research in AI to the Jenner’s Pond Retirement Community, which is geographically near UD and the home of many retired faculty and alumni. My presentation “Looking under the hood at the AI engine” had a packed audience (more than 100 attendees) with engaging discussions.