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Global Training Initiative

GEARS Faculty Mentors

Provide a hands-on lab skills experience for prospective NC State applicants from around the globe.

The success of the Global Education Advancement and Research Seminar (GEARS Program) stems from faculty engagement, so we are continually looking for faculty or departments who are willing to host and provide a lab skills experience to one or more talented undergraduate students from our global partner universities for 4 – 8 weeks in the winter or summer.

Guidance for faculty

Winter GEARS: January-February (4-5 week program with multiple start and end dates) 
Summer GEARS: July-August (4-8 week programs with multiple start and end dates)

Faculty from NC State University and partners (currently UNC Chapel Hill, UNC Wilmington, NC Central University, and Duke University) are encouraged to participate and consider these great program perks!

  • Recruit future graduate students
  • Build research links with students from other top universities
  • Provide current graduate students with supervisory experience
  • Advance your own research
  • A modest stipend per student hosted is provided. This may be used as supplemental pay, transferred to a departmental account or used to cover other departmental, lab or graduate student costs.

Program inquiries can be sent to gti-gears-staff@ncsu.edu

Faculty Mentor Registration

Fill out the following information to participate as a research host and mentor for GEARS students.

Sign up
student demonstrating research project

GEARS Research Contributions

Q&A with a faculty mentor about his experience working with students in a virtual setting and the benefits of the program.

Read more

Faculty mentors are responsible for:

  • Ensuring research compliance and their own professional eligibility to participate and earn additional compensation or lab funding.
  • Developing research plans so your student(s) have the equivalent of 4-8 hours of research work per day. This may include day-to-day supervision by a graduate student already working in your lab.
  • Defining one or more research tasks that the student(s) would be able to accomplish before the end of their program.
  • Meeting with each mentee at least once weekly to monitor progress, give advice, answer questions, and troubleshoot challenges.
  • Evaluating each students’ research experience and performance.
  • Updating GTI of continued relationships with GEARS mentees, including further research collaborations and degree-seeking studies

GTI Administrative Role:

  • Ensure immigration compliance
  • Arrange the logistics for the online and in-person programs (including visas, airport transfer, orientation, lodging, etc.)
  • Process payments
  • Recruit qualified applicants and maintain a timely and equitable admittance process
  • Provide complimentary academic instruction, professional development, and cultural engagement

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the purpose of the GEARS program?

The short-term academic program was established more than 20 years ago to connect international students who are new to research with professional development training while working with a faculty mentor on a fundamental research project. In addition to helping students seeking to explore current and new career paths, the program showcases the diversity of academic study available at NC State University.

Who can participate in this program?

Faculty mentors associated with NC State University, UNC System Institutions and specific academic institutions with significant ties to the NC State University community may participate.

How do I become a faculty mentor for this program?

After reviewing the roles and responsibilities of being a faculty mentor, you will submit your project using the submission form. The GTI will review the project contents and connect with any questions. You’ll be notified each semester when your project is posted.

How should faculty mentors prepare for the program?

After submitting your project, you will begin to design or refine an existing project for undergraduate students who are new to research. The project should be achievable/presentable within 4-6 weeks. The program is intensive and students are expected to spend 15-30 hours per week on their project.

Can faculty mentors publish research results with their undergraduate students?

Yes, in fact students have previously been published and we enjoy hearing about these occurrences. Previous published research collaborations featuring GEARS participatns can be found below.

What is the timeline for the application and selection process?

Recruitment start 4-6 months before the start of a research experience to ensure qualified participants can successful receive a visa. Pre-screened (transcripts, CV) first-round applicants will be sent to faculty mentors as they are available. Mentors have the option to accept, decline or waitlist any students who have applied to their project. Students may choose 2 projects to be considered for, so faculty are encouarged to make decisions within 3 business days of being notified of new candiates.

Are there any cultural or logistical considerations for international students?

Although there is a minimum required proficiency level for English, our students can often be less confident in speaking up with their ideas. One of the major benefits of our program for participants is to gain experience navigating the vernacular of their specific discipline in English. Please practice patience as students gain confidence with these aspects throughout the program. Additionally, as students can be from any time zone, we encourage online mentors to address time zone differences early on. Please be mindful of these differences when planning meetings to try to accommodate as many mentees as possible via scheduling flexibility, recording meetings, taking meeting notes, etc. Campus mentors are required to meet weekly with mentees through the program delivery period.

Are there certain research areas that we should not expose students to?

Mentors may not used federally sponsored research for GEARS projects.

Mentors may not offer projects utilizing dual use/controlled technologies or infringing on intellectual property. For example, projects involving missile guidance systems (and any other Department of Defense work) would not be appropriate for our program.

Research Collaboration

GEARS participants and research mentors have had great success in submitting journal articles, conference papers and more to various publications and conferences. Below is a sample of publications and topics that resulted from the research conducted during the GEARS program:

  • M Aguilos et al (2025) Environ. Res. Lett. 20 104019 “Tree mortality provides early warning sign of ecosystem functional transition in coastal freshwater forested wetlands”  https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ae0057
  • C. Huang, Z. Tay and K. Harfoush. “MASS Communication for Constrained Edge Devices”. Accepted for publication in the 30th International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN 2021).
  • “Towards a Holistic View of Technology Commercialization” for TEMSCON-EUR 2021
  • “On the Relationship between Digitalization and Managerial Competencies” for TEMSCON-EUR 2021
  • “Efficacy of Satisfiability-Based Attacks in the Presence of Circuit Reverse-Engineering Errors” 2020 EEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS)
  • Cheng, Y., Jiang, H., Xie, C-X. & Wang, Y-D. (In Press). Chatbots and health: Mental health. In Evelyn Ho, Carma Bylund, Julia van Weert, Iccha Basnyat, Nadine Bol, and Marleah Dean. (eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Health Communication. Wiley-Blackwell.
  • C.D. Haigh, J.H. Crews, S. Wang, G.D. Buckner, “Multi-Objective Design Optimization of a Shape Memory Alloy Flexural Actuator”, Actuators, 8(13), 1-16, 2019.
  • “An Interpretable Machine Learning Model to Classify Coronary Bifurcation Lesions” 2021 43rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society (EMBC).
  • X. Neumeyer and M. Liu, “Managerial Competencies and Development in the Digital Age,” in IEEE Engineering Management Review, vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 49-55, 1 third quarter,Sept. 2021, doi: 10.1109/EMR.2021.3101950.
  • “Measurement-Driven Flow Selection for Open vSwitch Offload” IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC 2022), Seoul, South Korea, May 2022.
  • “Airplane Detection and Classification Based on Mask R-CNN and YOLO with Feature Engineering”
  • “Enriching an Online Suicidal Dataset with Active Machine Learning”
  • X. Neumeyer, K. Cheng, Y. Chen and K. Swartz, “Blockchain and sustainability: An overview of challenges and main drivers of adoption,” 2021 IEEE International Conference on Technology Management, Operations and Decisions (ICTMOD), 2021, pp. 1-6, doi: 10.1109/ICTMOD52902.2021.9739231.
  • Cheng Y, Wang Y, Zhao W, Zhang K, Cai X, Jiang H. Virtually Enhancing Public Engagement During the Pandemic: Measuring the Impact of Virtual Reality Powered Immersive Videos on Corporate Social Responsibility Communication. Social Science Computer Review. July 2022. doi:10.1177/08944393221111482
  • Cheng, Y., Bai, Xin-Tong, & Jin, Wei-kai. (2022). Testing contingent relationships between multinational companies and consumers: Analyzing Tesla’s crisis communication in mainland China, the 25th annual International Public Relations Research Conference (IPRRC) Paper Proceedings, March 3-5, Orlando, USA.