FAMU receives $958,673 HBCU-RISE award

L-R: Professors Carl Moore, Hui Wang, and Tarek Dickens

FAMU-FSU College of Engineering professors, Tarik Dickens and Hui Wang, with the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, and Carl Moore, with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, have been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Historically Black Colleges and Universities Research Infrastructure for Science and Engineering (HBCU-RISE) award to develop research in advanced manufacturing utilizing biomimetic robotics.

HBCU-RISE activity within the major Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) program supports the development of research capabilities at HBCUs that offer doctoral degrees in science and engineering. This competitive national grant, worth over $958,673 is the first one awarded to FAMU, and one of only two ever awarded in the entire state of Florida.

Their research involves high performance additive manufacturing of composite structures via reconfigurable cyber-physical robotic systems. “The question we are trying to answer, is what will 21st century manufacturing look like? We are especially exploring biomimetic and high-throughput prototypes for additive manufacturing systems. Our cutting-edge research will help our students gain the skills needed for commercial and defense careers of the future,” remarked Dickens.

NSF RISE is a research infrastructure award targeted at building innovative research opportunities for graduate students. The NSF-RISE award means having the opportunity to establish at Florida A&M a research program in dimensional printing, one of the most promising technologies of the future, while at the same time developing a system to recruit and train underrepresented students to conduct that research and enter PhD programs in science and engineering.

“The NSF-RISE award provides us a great attractor to encourage students at FAMU to follow interesting careers being offered in Engineering involving the application of advanced manufacturing,” added Dickens.