OCAST funds three R&D Intern Partnerships

March 24, 2009

Professors from the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma State University and the OSU-University Multispectral Laboratory will oversee student interns in projects funded Tuesday by OCAST in the agency’s R&D Intern Partnerships program.

OCAST is the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology.  Each R&D Intern Partnership project will operate two years in collaboration with universities and private-sector companies in Tulsa, Stillwater and Ponca City.

Each internship receives $60,000 for each of two years, bringing the total to $180,000.  Awards support undergraduate student internships in energy conversion, engineering and security and safety.

Since 1998 the OCAST R&D Intern Partnerships program has assisted Oklahoma small businesses in locating hard-to-find technology trained employees.  OCAST pays half of the cost for an undergraduate intern to work in a research and development setting.

Michael Carolina, executive director of OCAST, said, “The R&D Intern Partnerships program is OCAST’s closest connection with technology-trained college-level students.  It is gratifying to see interns who graduate from the program find positions with their sponsoring Oklahoma business.  We believe it keeps some of our best and brightest in Oklahoma improving our state’s economy.”

More than 500 undergraduate students have interned at 80 Oklahoma industries since the program’s inception.

OCAST’s program is designed to assist technology-based job creation.  It combines university faculty oversight with financial support and company mentoring from the private sector.  Many of the college students who participate in the program eventually become employees of the small businesses that sponsor them.

The most recent program awards follow:

Energy Conversion

Tulsa – Surendra Singh of the University of Tulsa will mentor interns who will research projects involving the design and development of a new burner information database, starting with the trademarked COOLstart burner.  Students will work at the John Zink Company’s engineering design, testing and manufacturing facility in Tulsa and focus on components of a burner management system.

Engineering

Stillwater – Frank Chambers and his co-principal investigator Woody Smith of MerCruiser will work with interns at the Mercury MerCruiser manufacturing facility in Stillwater.  Interns will focus on designing and developing new products, improving existing products and developing new and improved performance and reliability tests.  Areas of interest include development of a new stern drive technology for diesel applications as well as 360 degree joystick docking.

Security and Safety

Ponca City – D. Webster Keogh of the Oklahoma State University Multispectral Laboratory will direct undergraduate student interns charged with operating, managing and maintaining a modern instrumentation lab.  Interns will conduct research for mitigation of innovative uses of toxic industrial chemicals and materials by terrorists.