Outreach & DEI

K-12 OUTREACH

The Yu Research Group believes that cultivating the next-generation manufacturing leaders is a top priority, especially those pre-college young talents. Over the last five years, the PI and his students have actively engaged in K-12 outreach via collaboration with the Center for Engineering Education and Diversity (CEED) at Virginia Tech. The picture above shows PI’s graduate students performing lab demos for C-Tech2, a summer camp for high school women who are rising juniors and seniors; and JROTC, a military-based summer camp that fosters competencies in STEM. Exit surveys from these groups of students showed that the PI’s laboratory made an impact on many of the students.

DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION (DEI)

The Yu Research Group at Virginia Tech believes that technological and societal growth must be accomplished simultaneously for a better future. The group strives to live up to its ideals of removing barriers for participation and increasing their impact by addressing DEI in the engineering field:

Being unique can be challenging, but we feel it is also a gift to generate various opportunities for growth. Our team works hard to foster a positive work and social environment in which everyone feels accepted and respected (regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, country of origin, religion, sexual orientation, or skin color), while addressing the world's most pressing engineering issues.

Minority group participants currently make up a very small part of engineering and manufacturing.  The Yu Research Group has been attempting to address this issue by promoting DEI, having advised 12 underrepresented grad/undergrad students (Hispanic, Latino, African American, Female). Among them, 2 received Ph.D. (Garcia and Perry), 1 received masters (Petersen), and 7 finished senior design projects (Bautista, Periera, Wright, Tran, Sanchez, Lee, Echols). Garcia and Perry were also part of the team winning the American-Made Challenge Prize in 2020. Perry received the prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and Acta Student Award. Prof. Yu has also advised and promoted students (Hartley, Yoder, Knight) from the Appalachian region, which is historically underserved.