AMIC Student – Industry Seed Program
The UW AMIC Seed Program is an opportunity for graduate students and/or postdocs to gain experience working on projects of interest to industry. Participants get an inside look at the problems and challenges facing industry, and work to help develop solutions. Participants also gain experience in funded research from proposal development to final reporting.
Scope of Seed Projects
The UW AMIC funds short-term, collaborative research projects that address a current or anticipated need in advanced materials and/or manufacturing.
Proposals are intended to address an industry-solicited challenge area. Projects are awarded for one academic year (8-month project period), with the potential for renewal.
AMIC Seed projects are conducted by one student or a small team of UW–Madison graduate students and/or post-doctoral researchers (postdocs) who are advised by a UW–Madison faculty member. For these students and postdocs, the goal of the AMIC Seed program is to provide real-world experience in an industrial setting. Participants get an inside look at problems or challenges facing industry and they work to develop solutions. They also gain experience in the processes around funded research from proposal development to final reporting. Typically, 1 to 3 projects (up to ~$15,000/project) are awarded in this biennial competition.
Review Process
Proposals are reviewed and evaluated based on the NSF criteria of: 1) intellectual merit, and 2) broader impacts. Intellectual merit addresses the potential for the proposed activity to advance knowledge and understanding within its own field or across different fields, and broader impacts addresses the potential for the proposed activity to benefit society or advance desired societal outcomes.
Submit Your Project Topics Now for the 2022-23 AMIC Seed Program
The UW AMIC is soliciting proposals for short-term, collaborative research projects that address a current or anticipated need in advanced materials and/or manufacturing.
July 27, 2022
Investigating a Replacement for Oil-Based Plastics and Taking Computer Simulations to the Next Level are Focus of 2021 AMIC Seed Projects
Understanding how the crystal structure of a new polyester material affects its usefulness as a replacement for a common oil-based plastic will be the focus of a new research project recently selected for funding. A second project selected in this round will develop never-before-accomplished 3D simulations of an optical materials characterization technique known as random lasing. Both of these projects have been selected for funding in 2021 by the University of Wisconsin Advanced Materials Industrial Consortium (AMIC) as part of the organization’s seed program and will be supported with in-kind contributions from partnering companies.
January 28, 2021
Collaborative Research Project Tackles Interesting Questions While Putting Graduate Student’s Project Management Skills to Work
Working together, University of Wisconsin graduate student, Sachin Muley, and engineers from NCD Technologies have determined optimal recipes for a carbon coating for an industrial application while also furthering research in this area. The 10-month project set out to understand and optimize mechanical properties in amorphous carbon coatings that NCD uses for industrial applications. A paper based on this research is currently in development.