Student innovation can only exist with connection. Research needs collaboration.
To make that happen, students from as close as UVU and as far as New Jersey gathered at the sixth annual Intermountain Engineering, Technology and Computing (I-ETC) Conference in May.
The way they received input and learned from each other is a steppingstone for them to become experienced engineers, said keynote speaker, Dr. Brian Mazzeo, BYU electrical and computer engineering professor.
"For them to have a scientific conference in their backyard is a great proposition for them," Mazzeo said. “If research isn't shared, it's as if it never happened. You don't actually want students and faculty working in isolation. You actually want people to kind of poke at your ideas a bit to see where the weak points are.”
In collaboration with local universities and several of Utah’s technology industries, the young conference provides an accessible, formal venue that introduces students to the research industry and networking early in their careers.
Professor Mohammad Masoum from Utah Valley University was the visionary behind I-ETC, involving the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) to provide regional support for student research.
This year, Dr. Spencer Guthrie took initiative as general conference chair and as a BYU civil engineering professor to involve many students in the organizing committee while, in the past, those roles have been reserved for the faculty. Seth Chaney, a BYU-I mechanical engineering major, recognized the efforts being made to hand this experience over to the students.
“It impressed me for our moderators and the people in charge to be able to step out of the way and allow the conference presenters and participants to do a lot of the interacting between each other,” Chaney said.
Students prepared papers and presentations on conference deadlines and practiced publishing work to the research community, but to Guthrie’s pleasure, they also invited their families to come see what they were sharing.
“I love seeing how proud the parents are of their students, their children,” Guthrie said. “I like that it's recognized as a very family friendly venue where you can bring children, you can invite your parents, and really showcase what their research is, what they've been accomplishing through research.”
This sharing attitude created community connections among students and faculty alike. Many students realized that people they met at the conference could create connections later on that push research and innovation forward.
“I think it’s so awesome to meet people from so many different disciplines and so many different areas because my goal in life is to travel a lot and to really expand my understanding of the cultures in the world around me,” Grace Whiting, BYU civil engineering major, said.
William Parkinson, UVU electrical and computer engineering major, said that a major benefit of the conference is “exposure, if [your research] is good, if it’s not, if they’re neutral towards it, getting a thumb on how people feel.” That same awareness was exciting to Bryson Decker, a BYU electrical engineering major.
“Having a bunch of different schools combined with this conference has helped us see a lot of different research in different areas,” Decker said. “I think it’s super exciting to see … how the universities are helping us to achieve greater technology.”
A large focus of the research was service to communities. Topics varied from phishing attempts to seismic safety.
In his keynote address, Mazzeo shared his story of research that generated solutions over a decade and a half and encouraged students to work interdisciplinarily as they innovate.
“What you see at these conferences is a lot of creativity,” Mazzeo said. “What you see is that there are so many problems that still need to be solved, and it takes a lot of different approaches to attack these problems. I think, for students, they don't always see long-term how the research process unfolds.”
These interactions invigorated attendees with a new understanding of research and the possibilities that unfold from their education. Some even left considering graduate school as a new part of their future after bringing their work in front of peers at the conference, building confidence, Guthrie said.
“The primary motivation for my own involvement is the benefit that I see for the students. That's it, simply,” Guthrie said. “They begin to see that their potential is perhaps higher than they thought it might have been otherwise. And then, they reach a little higher. And hopefully, we as faculty are there to support them and help them achieve their higher aspirations as a result.”
Darryl Carpenter, a computer science major from Montclair State University, called it motivating and eye-opening.
“We’ve got people here that are working on all different things, from engineering to technology,” Carpenter said. “This is the place where you want to be. And as you’ll see, the work speaks for itself.”