DERCONNECT REGIONAL UNDERGRAD OUTREACH

Our DERConnect outreach team is committed to supporting the regional technical workforce through outreach to our current and prospective engineering students. We aim to engage and support students through enrichment experiences in a combination of high touch, medium touch, and broad impact programs and events. We provide experiential learning environments that inspire, teach, and educate our next generation of electrical and mechanical engineers in the space of renewable energy, distributed energy resources, microgrids, optimization, and more. 

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In addition, our outreach research assistants and interns are apart of DERConnect's overall outreach efforts. Our Research Assistant/Intern apply industry skills in power systems, microgrid modeling, embedded systems, and software-hardware integration. Their work involves developing and testing distributed energy resource (DER) systems for education, conducting system simulations using MATLAB/Simulink, and implementing real-time control strategies with microcontrollers. They lead weekly team meetings and bi-weekly technical reviews to ensure project alignment, document findings, and contribute to outreach initiatives. Most importantly, they mentor our community college interns, lead technical sub-teams, and engage in professional development through workshops on model-based design, embedded programming, and engineering communication.