Workshops

Career Development Workshops
Contact: David Attig

 

Highly Relevant Workshops Specifically for TiMe Trainees:

3D Printing Workshop
Rapid prototyping is becoming a skill as common as computing. This three day workshop teaches creation of 3D designs using Autodesk Inventor through both a guided tutorial and independent experimentation under expert supervision. Students will be trained in converting designs into 3D printed prototypes and understand technologies available for prototyping. Student’s will make apart from their own work. Typically, bioengineering students have made sample holders, microfluidic devices, and prosthetic parts. The Illinois MakerLab, with twelve 3D printers, a couple of scanners, and several workstations, serves over 1000 students with workshops, walk-in print services, and courses.
Bionanophotonics
Mentors Popescu, Boppart, and Bhargava launched the Nanobiophotonics Summer School (NBSS) in 2009. The school consists of 2 weeks (10 days) of morning and afternoon sessions. The first week focuses on basics, and the second on advanced topics/applications. In afternoon sessions, students perform simulations, experiments, and tour laboratories. The first offering was targeted to Grad+ students and attracted over 60 (25 from outside IL) and several faculty, with enrollment now routinely at those levels. Each participant has access to a website to download all programs, computational methods, and results from our studies, including data.
Writing Workshop (New)
A two-day workshop will be held for trainees to improve their critical reading and rhetorical skills. The workshop offers trainees a framework for writing reports of their activities, technical documents, papers, and grant proposals later in their training. Examples of the topics include: Persuasive Science Communication; Giving Better Talks; The Publication Process; Writing Abstracts and Introductions; Methods and Results Sections of Scientific Papers; Displaying Scientific Data; Writing Scientific Proposals; and, The Proposal Review Process. Ms. Celia Elliot, Director of Ext. Affairs and Special Projects and Instructor in the Dept of Physics will organize and present the workshop. Ms. Elliot has been involved with technical writing instruction at Illinois for nearly three decades including the development of PHYS 598PEN Communicating Physics Research, a writing course with content similar to the TiMe writing workshop.
Design Thinking Workshop Series (New)
Design thinking is a process for problem-solving that aims to understand why people do what they do, with the goal of understanding what they might do in the future. By understanding motivations, values, and context, we can identify not only what is wrong or what’s missing, but how we might be able to use design to fulfill unmet needs. Throughout the course of the academic year, four three-hour design thinking workshops will be held for trainees to improve their creativity, collaboration, and understanding skills. This series of workshops will take the trainees through the design thinking and human-centered design research process to understand the lived experiences and journeys of their end-users. The workshops will offer trainees powerful tools to improve their teamwork, expand their perspectives, and bolster their storytelling and communication skills, with particular emphasis on how these skills directly link back to their respective research foci. Topics include Human-Centered Mindsets; Interdisciplinary Collaboration; End-User Empathy & Understanding; Creativity & Synthesis; Opportunities for Design; and Powerful Storytelling. The workshop series will be organized and presented by Ms. Rachael Dietkus, Associate Director of Programs at Siebel Center for Design, where she oversees programs, training, and curriculum development.
Basic Techniques and Specialized Applications of Animal Cell Culture
A four-day workshop is offered by the TEP shared resource of the Cancer Center at Illinois that covers the basic methodology of cell culture as well as specialized techniques in stem cell research and tissue engineering including vitrification and organotypic culture, and conditions for culture of epithelial, mesenchymal, neurectodermal, hematopoietic cells, and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells