{"id":29616,"date":"2015-08-27T20:29:40","date_gmt":"2015-08-28T00:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom2\/2015\/08\/28\/necc-students-spend-summer-at-umass-lowell-research-program\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T16:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T20:18:15","slug":"necc-students-spend-summer-at-umass-lowell-research-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom\/2015\/08\/27\/necc-students-spend-summer-at-umass-lowell-research-program\/","title":{"rendered":"NECC Students Spend Summer at UMass Lowell Research Program"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_11970\" style=\"width: 235px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/media-old\/2015\/08\/Nabil-newsroom.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11970\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11970\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/media-old\/2015\/08\/Nabil-newsroom-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"Nabil Saleh of Methuen a mechanical engineering student at NECC makes his final presentation during UMass Lowell's REU summer program. \" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-11970\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nabil Saleh of Methuen a mechanical engineering student at NECC makes his final presentation during UMass Lowell&#8217;s REU summer program.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Two <a href=\"https:\/\/www.necc.mass.edu\/\">Northern Essex Community College<\/a> students, Nabil Saleh of Methuen and Kelsey Wright of Lawrence spent the summer playing with molds created from 3D printers.<\/p>\n<p>They also navigated their way around new library search engines and developed their \u201celevator pitch\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Saleh an NECC <a href=\"https:\/\/www.necc.mass.edu\/academics\/courses-programs\/areas\/technology-engineering\/\">mechanical engineering<\/a> student and Wright, who graduated in May from NECC with an \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.necc.mass.edu\/academics\/courses-programs\/areas\/science\/liberal-arts-biology\/\">Associate in Arts Liberal Arts: Biology Option degree<\/a>, were two of 14 students who participated in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.umb.edu\/academics\/csm\/biology\/beyond_the_classroom\/research_experiences_for_undergraduates\">UMass Lowell\u2019s 10-week Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Saleh\u2019s research involved the \u201cEffect of Rapid and Conventional Tooling for Injection Molding on Parts Properties.\u201d\u00a0 His advisor was UMass Lowell Associate Professor Stephen Johnston from the Department of Plastics Engineering. He was mentored by UMass Lowell doctoral student Gabriel Mendible.<\/p>\n<p>He evaluated rapid tooling molds produced by a 3D printing process called Objet.\u00a0 For this work, he learned to operate the injection molding machines at UMass Lowell, optimized the injection molding conditions for the two types of molds, and molded test specimens with these optimized molding conditions.\u00a0 Saleh then tested the tensile, impact, and other properties of the molded parts to see how they changed when using a mold made from a plastics material.\u00a0His work was part of a larger project in which Dr. Johnston\u2019s research group has been investigating the effects of novel mold fabrication technologies and materials on the properties of the molded parts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a very good experience,\u201d Saleh said. \u201cI learned a lot and I gained experience that will help me in achieve my career goals. It was a new and challenging topic for me, but I enjoyed it a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wright\u2019s investigated a new method for modeling and meshing parts and creating the files used in 3D printing processes.\u00a0Her advisor was Associate Professor David Willis from the Department of Mechanical Engineering. She was mentored by UMass Lowell graduate student Milo DiPaola.\u00a0She made the jump from her associate degree in biology to working with solid model and meshing software.\u00a0 This model\/meshing method has the potential to significantly increase the speed at which 3D printers can produce parts.<\/p>\n<p>A portion of the program included helping the students improve their science communication skills.\u00a0 They learned to use search engines at UMass Lowell\u2019s library and their transformed literature searches into introductions for their research projects.<\/p>\n<p>They also participated in a modified Science Communication Workshop at the Boston Museum of Science in which they learned to discuss their research in short \u201celevator speeches\u201d and to produce research presentations that could be understood by audiences from a wide range of technical disciplines.<\/p>\n<p>The student received a small stipend for their participation.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two Northern Essex Community College students, Nabil Saleh of Methuen and Kelsey Wright of Lawrence spent the summer playing with molds created from 3D printers. They also navigated their way [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>NECC Students Spend Summer at UMass Lowell Research Program - NECC News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom\/2015\/08\/27\/necc-students-spend-summer-at-umass-lowell-research-program\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NECC Students Spend Summer at UMass Lowell Research Program - NECC News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Two Northern Essex Community College students, Nabil Saleh of Methuen and Kelsey Wright of Lawrence spent the summer playing with molds created from 3D printers. 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