Undergraduates gain research experience with the U.S. Army

The Army contacted us over the summer of 24 about, hey, like we have this hardware that we want you to work with and can you get a team together? This is the ground zero right now. We're getting trained on the equipment and the processes that we need to know to deal with the equipment. But there's something about joining in and having that sort of accountability on the other end of a stakeholder or a client or a sponsor. The student and the external sponsor really get to know each other. They can both know, I know what it's like working with you, I know what your mission's like, I know your character, and I think it makes a really good pairing. One of the great things about working with Gray UR is that we get access to Dr. Gray's research methodology, which is to empower his undergraduate teams and give them freedom to run with the project. That combined with the support we're getting from the U.S. Army is definitely a unique experience for undergraduates. We've seen a lot of people talking about workplace development, so I think it's a real big goal of what I want here is for students to be able to leave here and go into their first job and just seamlessly jump in. I wanted a school with a lot of opportunity to get involved outside of my classwork. Undergraduate research is just such a great way to apply what we've been learning in the classroom. Research really lets you explore out in the quote-unquote real world to tackle some of The interesting projects and research questions that are present, that's what really sets Virginia Tech apart from other universities.