ICDS News

The Richard King Mellon Foundation recently awarded Penn State a $392,000 grant to build a strong science- and technology-focused workforce in the state’s Mon Valley region through collaboration and virtual, augmented and mixed reality trainings and tools. Penn State Greater Allegheny and the Penn State Center for Immersive Experiences at University Park will work in collaboration on this project. Credit: Penn State.

Project aims to build strong manufacturing workforce with immersive technology

McKEESPORT, Pa. — The Richard King Mellon Foundation recently awarded $392,000 to two researchers at Penn State to build a strong science- and technology-focused (STF) workforce in the state’s Mon Valley region through collaboration and virtual, augmented and mixed reality trainings and tools.

The two-phase “Immersive upskilling for STF Workers” project will be led by co-primary investigators, Megan Nagel, chancellor and chief academic officer at Penn State Greater Allegheny, and Jessica Menold, Penn State Center for Immersive Experiences (CIE) director and associate professor in the Penn State College of Engineering.

According to CIE’s website, “The Center for Immersive Experiences (CIE) provides cutting-edge immersive technologies, knowledge and skills to the Penn State community with the goal to create leadership in immersive experiences by advancing the underlying science and integrating it into the academic spectrum through research, education and outreach.”

Penn State Greater Allegheny, located in McKeesport, serves the Mon Valley region which has seen a loss of industry and population. Together, Penn State Greater Allegheny and CIE will offer training to benefit manufacturers and build technical skills in the workforce.

“We at the center [Center for Immersive Experiences] are really passionate about working to support, in whatever way we can, using immersive technologies to enable economic growth across Pennsylvania,” Menold said. “Specifically, we are excited to use immersive technology, like virtual reality, to train and upskill workers so that we can meet the demands of increasingly complex and demanding manufacturing environments.”

“The ‘Immersive Upskilling for STF Workers’ grant will bring research, scholarly activity and community engagement to a region poised to work with local manufacturers,” Nagel said. “The Mon Valley region will benefit from investment and revitalization, and the training will allow manufacturers to employ a skilled workforce and be competitive on a regional, state and national level.”

In phase one of this project, Nagel and Menold aim to hold community town halls and workshops with manufacturers to seek input, define barriers or obstacles faced in workshops and get an understanding of interest, engagement and manufacturers’ needs. The team will collect the data co-created from the workshops to formulate a report that will codify the training needs and barriers faced by community members.

Manufacturers will have the opportunity to experience immersive technology before it is deployed to the workforce.

“It is a benefit to the researchers [at Penn State] to get an understanding of the needs and develop their technology to meet the needs, connecting to the practitioner,” Nagel said.

Phase two will assess, via pilot-tests, the ability of these immersive training tools and platforms like virtual and augmented realities to successfully improve workers’ skills in relevant areas, according to the project proposal. The team will collect data of the participants’ baseline performance before engaging in the program and use this to measure how much or how little the trainings improved participants’ performance.

“We are adopting a co-design model for this effort and are really hoping to both identify and design novel training experiences in close partnership with the communities we are hoping to serve. That means going out and speaking with local communities and manufacturers to understand what their unique needs are,” Menold said. “Then, we will take time to analyze that data and develop immersive training platforms that help workers fill those needs. We will come back out [to the region] to work directly with the community to distribute.”

The Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute, Catalyst Connection and the Franco Harris Pittsburgh Center at Penn State are also involved in supporting this project which will roughly take place over 18 to 24 months.

“We’ve done our best to rope in key players in the community that we are trying to serve, that way we are not pushing research out but rather are engaging in a mutual co-creation of these platforms. That collaboration is absolutely critical to the proposal,” Menold said. “Our hope is we can continue to find sustainable pathways to promote and continue to develop educational platforms if we find that this is a particularly effective method for training workers.”

Nagel echoed the sentiment.

“What is being developed in State College is being deployed through the Commonwealth Campus system,” Nagel said. “To me, this is when Penn State is enacting its true land-grant mission. I want to emphasize the powerful partnership between the campus and university to benefit the communities in the state… I view this as a true partnership.”

Share

Related Posts

• Featured Researcher: Nick Tusay
• Multi-institutional team to use AI to evaluate social, behavioral science claims
• NSF invests in cyberinfrastructure institute to harness cosmic data
• Center for Immersive Experiences set to debut, serving researchers and students
• Distant Suns, Distant Worlds
• CyberScience Seminar: Researcher to discuss how AI can help people avoid adverse drug interactions
• AI could offer warnings about serious side effects of drug-drug interactions
• Taking RTKI drugs during radiotherapy may not aid survival, worsens side effects
• Cost-effective cloud research computing options now available for researchers
• Costs of natural disasters are increasing at the high end
• Model helps choose wind farm locations, predicts output
• Virus may jump species through ‘rock-and-roll’ motion with receptors
• Researchers seek to revolutionize catalyst design with machine learning
• Resilient Resumes team places third in Nittany AI Challenge
• ‘AI in Action’: Machine learning may help scientists explore deep sleep
• Clickbait Secrets Exposed! Humans and AI team up to improve clickbait detection
• Focusing computational power for more accurate, efficient weather forecasts
• How many Earth-like planets are around sun-like stars?
• Professor receives NSF grant to model cell disorder in heart
• SMH! Brains trained on e-devices may struggle to understand scientific info
• Whole genome sequencing may help officials get a handle on disease outbreaks
• New tool could reduce security analysts’ workloads by automating data triage
• Careful analysis of volcano’s plumbing system may give tips on pending eruptions
• Reducing farm greenhouse gas emissions may plant the seed for a cooler planet
• Using artificial intelligence to detect discrimination
• Four ways scholars say we can cut the chances of nasty satellite data surprises
• Game theory shows why stigmatization may not make sense in modern society
• Older adults can serve communities as engines of everyday innovation
• Pig-Pen effect: Mixing skin oil and ozone can produce a personal pollution cloud
• Researchers find genes that could help create more resilient chickens
• Despite dire predictions, levels of social support remain steady in the U.S.
• For many, friends and family, not doctors, serve as a gateway to opioid misuse
• New algorithm may help people store more pictures, share videos faster
• Head named for Ken and Mary Alice Lindquist Department of Nuclear Engineering
• Scientific evidence boosts action for activists, decreases action for scientists
• People explore options, then selectively represent good options to make difficult decisions
• Map reveals that lynching extended far beyond the deep South
• Gravitational forces in protoplanetary disks push super-Earths close to stars
• Supercomputer cluster donation helps turn high school class into climate science research lab
• Believing machines can out-do people may fuel acceptance of self-driving cars
• People more likely to trust machines than humans with their private info
• IBM donates system to Penn State to advance AI research
• ICS Seed Grants to power projects that use AI, machine learning for common good
• Penn State Berks team advances to MVP Phase of Nittany AI Challenge
• Creepy computers or people partners? Working to make AI that enhances humanity
• Sky is clearing for using AI to probe weather variability
• ‘AI will see you now’: Panel to discuss the AI revolution in health and medicine
• Privacy law scholars must address potential for nasty satellite data surprises
• Researchers take aim at hackers trying to attack high-value AI models
• Girls, economically disadvantaged less likely to get parental urging to study computers
• Seed grants awarded to projects using Twitter data
• Researchers find features that shape mechanical force during protein synthesis
• A peek at living room decor suggests how decorations vary around the world
• Interactive websites may cause antismoking messages to backfire
• Changing how government assesses risk may ease fallout from extreme financial events
• Symposium at U.S. Capitol seeks solutions to election security
• ICS co-sponsors Health, Environment Seed Grant Program
• ICS Affiliate named AGU fellow
• Differences in genes’ geographic origin influence mitochondrial function