Undergraduate & Graduate

We host two students annually as part of the NHERI wide 10-week Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Summer Program to do large scale seismic research. The program includes activities such as professional development workshops; site specific research mentoring in areas such as instrumentation, material testing, analysis, design, construction; and team building events for the LHPOST6 cohort. 

Since 2007, UC San Diego has hosted 37 NEES REU students, 59% from underrepresented groups and 40.5% women, and since 2017, has hosted 18 NHERI REU students, 69% from underrepresented groups and 75% women.  An effort is made to identify the right projects, ensuring project PIs and graduate students provide sufficient mentorship, review research posters, and prepare students for formal presentations of their research.

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This summer research program at UC San Diego is designed to encourage participation of high school students, university students, and researchers/teachers in research in the sciences and engineering and to promote cross-border collaboration between Latin America and the US. We engage with ENLACE to encourage students from minority-serving institutions to enter into STEM fields. Specifically, we host ENLACE high school and college students each summer to engage in LHPOST6 research and provide an annual tour of our one-of-a-kind facilities for the entire ENLACE cohort with hands-on engineering activities.

The goal of the IDEA Scholars Program is to foster community building and academic excellence among our top incoming freshman engineering students from diverse backgrounds. As an IDEA Scholar, students will join a select group of students who will serve as ambassadors for the  Jacobs School of Engineering throughout their time at UC San Diego. We will mentor scholars in undergraduate research, and support professional and leadership development opportunities by bringing them to the LHPOST6 facility for tours.

The Summer Training Academy for Research Success (STARS) program is an eight-week summer research academy for community college students, undergraduate students, recent college graduates, and masters students. The program offers rigorous research opportunities, informative transfer and graduate school preparation workshops, and educational, cultural, and social activities. We will host STARS students each summer for hands-on research opportunities at the LHPOST6, and support students to present research at the UCSD Summer Research Conference.

The PATHways to STEM through Enhanced Access and Mentorship (PATHS) program empowers under-resourced and underrepresented students in STEM to mobilize a new, diverse generation of STEM leaders. We will host PATHS students each summer to engage in the LHPOST6 research and have meaningful interactions with STEM faculty.

Through the UC San Diego SE 199 course option, we will support students who are interested in conducting an independent research project by special arrangement with a faculty member in the Structural Engineering Department.

The goals of the IDEA Center at the Jacobs School of Engineering are to foster a diverse student body, to increase retention and graduation rates, to provide student-centered services that promote academic success, to promote a supportive and inclusive environment for all engineering students, and to support engineering student organizations and project teams. Engineering Graduate & Scholarly Talks are a series of academic, professional, and technical training workshops sponsored by the IDEA Student Center and open to all graduate and postdoctoral engineering students at the Jacobs School of Engineering. The LHPOST6 will participate in this program by presenting on a number of relevant topics that would interest a broad representation of engineering graduate students focused not only on the research conducted at the facility, but also professional development topics like engineering ethics, research methods, analytical approaches, etc.

As part of participating in research at the LHPOST6 facility, our faculty and staff help train graduate assistants alongside their own research advisors on best practices in conducting large scale shake table testing. They will learn from our expertise how to design an experimental test program, develop instrumentation plans, work with contractors at the facility in construction techniques, develop analytical models for prediction, develop appropriate earthquake records, and analyze data. Our facility is dedicated to preparing the next generation of intellectual leaders in hazard mitigation and in society. We enjoy the personal and professional satisfaction inherent in these mentoring relationships.
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