CURIE Academy encourages girls to pursue engineering

From left, Rachel Nancollas, Jenny Kwok, Shriddha Nayak and Emily McGrath listen to comments about their final presentation on the ecological impact of DVDs, CDs and similar products, and their proposal to recycle CDs, digital players and media. Robert Barker/University Photography

By Susan Lang

What better way to explore the field of engineering with a group of gifted high school students than through the world of CD and DVD players. That's just what 40 young women did July 24 to 31 in the CURIE Academy, a week-long summer engineering program at Cornell.

Tearing apart CD and DVD players and then delving into the machines' electronics, control systems, optics, sound processing and error correction and detection, among other systems, gave the students a taste of how all the various aspects of engineering are necessary and must work together to design a successful product.

Now in its ninth year, the CURIE Academy is administered by Women's Programs in Engineering and is designed to encourage young women to go into engineering. The acronym -- for Cornell University Research In Engineering -- spells out the name of perhaps the last century's most famous woman scientist, Marie Curie.

The students, all of whom excel in math and science, were selected for the program from schools across the country. They participated in seminars, a workshop and hands-on sessions, working with faculty members, program assistants and teaching assistants.

"In labs each day, the students dove into each of the different engineering disciplines that had a part in the design and integration of the players," said Mike Thompson, associate professor of materials science and engineering and one of this year's project leaders. "They came to realize how all the various disciplines, from mechanical, electrical, materials, environmental, manufacturing and computer engineering, came together to create a real product."

In addition, the young women also explored the links that engineering has to the social sciences, ethics and society. They looked, for example, at how engineers who design CD and DVD players have to consider copyright protection as well as the environment. For their final project, presented on the last day of the program, one group of students explored the ecological implications of CD and DVD players and media.

"This group considered the recycling of CDs and DVDs," said Thompson. "They researched how a significant amount of these materials could easily be chipped up and recycled to make new CDs, yet very little of the polycarbonate used is now recycled. They also discussed how CDs could in fact be made of paper."

In past years, the program's students have considered epidemiology by looking at a fictitious outbreak of smallpox in two locations; studied the use of small robots for cancer detection; and formulated recommendations for a regional water quality management plan.

"The CURIE Academy is a challenging college-level academic experience presenting real-life engineering problems in a social context encompassing such constraints as time, budget, political and cultural issues, as well as the technical issues," said R.J. Burt, assistant director of Women's Programs in Engineering. She noted that in each of the last two years, about 25 percent of the students who participated in CURIE later matriculated in the College of Engineering.