For the third time in three years, a Butler County Community College student has been selected from national candidates to attend a residential summer research experience funded by the National Science Foundation.

Jeannine Eichenlaub, a 19-year-old engineering student from Saxonburg, is one of 10 first-year community college students chosen from 45 applicants for a research experience for undergraduates at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.

The 2022 Knoch High School graduate will study damage-sensing in liquid-metal-reinforced laminated composites.

Eichenlaub’s 10-week research ends in mid-August.

Hers is one topic among eight that students are exploring in a program called advanced interdisciplinary materials research for maritime applications.

“BC3 helped me to gain the qualifications to go to this,” Eichenlaub said. “All my chem classes, my math. Physics. All of them have been beneficial for this.”

Eichenlaub follows Ash Eury in 2022 and Hope Miller in 2021 as students in BC3’s science, technology, engineering and mathematics division to be picked for a National Science Foundation-funded residential summer research experience.

Eury was one of 11 first-year community college students and Miller one of 10 selected for programs at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va.

Eury is a Seneca Valley High graduate from Cranberry Township who researched stress reactions of red-sided garter snakes.

Miller, a Butler High graduate from Butler, studied visual neuroscience.

Eury and Miller graduated summa cum laude from BC3 with associate degrees in biological science. Summa cum laude is a distinction for students with a final grade-point average of 3.75 or higher.

Engineering and biological science are among 15 associate degree programs in BC3’s STEM division.

“This is a direct comment and compliment on the quality of our student population,” said Matt Kovac, BC3’s dean of STEM.

“You have to have high-quality students who are able to be considered for these highly competitive opportunities. Alongside that, we have a very dedicated faculty who will not only provide high-quality instruction, but beyond that, are willing to work with students,” he said.

Eichenlaub will have attended a research ethics workshop, visited the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to be introduced to unmanned vehicles and to technology that creates 3-D mapping, and learned how to use an oscilloscope and how to analyze data and make observations from results.

“This is an intensive research program for 40 hours a week,” said Dr. Vijay Chalivendra, a professor of mechanical engineering and director of graduate studies for the College of Engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. “These are all new things for her. She will have a wide range of experiences.”

Composites are used in many industries that include aerospace, automobile manufacturing and ship-building, Chalivendra said.

“We need to know if those composites are able to function as they are designed for and we can monitor the damage inside the structures to see whether they are safe to use,” he said.

Eichenlaub has stacked, vacuum-sealed and infused layers of woven carbon and glass fibers with resin and liquid metal.

After the resin has cured, she has sliced and placed the layers into a helium gas gun for ballistics tests and experimented with different orientations of the fabric or different percentages of liquid metal to find if the layer’s strength will increase.

“I think it’s really, really cool,” Eichenlaub said. “It’s just very different. I did not know stuff like this existed. There are weekly seminars where the 10 students in the program present what we’ve done during the week and what our results are. So I get to see what the other students are doing, which is fascinating.

“This is an opportunity that is going to benefit me the rest of my life.”

Student researchers at the university will receive free housing, a meal allowance and a $6,000 stipend.

Eichenlaub said she built houses from Legos and assembled model airplanes as a child. She followed her two siblings to BC3, where she has attained the dean’s list, an honor for those with a grade-point average of between 3.5 and 3.74. She plans to graduate debt-free in May 2024 and intends to become a mechanical engineer.

The National Science Foundation funds approximately 25 percent of all federally supported basic research conducted by colleges and universities in the United States.

Bill Foley is coordinator of news and media content at Butler County Community College.