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Global Training Initiative

GEARS Faculty Mentors

The success of the 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.

Our program currently welcomes faculty from NC State University, UNC Chapel Hill, UNC Wilmington, NC Central University and Duke University.

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

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.

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student demonstrating research project

Program Highlights

  • 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.
  • Develop 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.
  • Define one or more research tasks that the student(s) would be able to accomplish before the end of their program.
  • Meet at least once a week to monitor progress, give advice, answer questions, and troubleshoot any problems.
  • Write a short, final evaluation of your students’ research experience.
  • Keep GTI updated on any publications, papers or patents that include GEARS students as co-researchers or authors.
  • Arrange the logistics for the online and in-person programs (including visas, airport transfer, orientation, lodging, etc.)
  • Process payments
  • Recruit and admit students to the program
  • Provide weekly cultural events (in-person programs)
  • Provide professional development workshops

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:

  • 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.