Mohammad Elahinia
University of Toledo, OH·Education Research
Advanced manufacturing in Northwest Ohio needs skilled workers. Meanwhile, many young people, especially those from underrepresented groups, face barriers to STEM training and careers.
- Fields
Education Research
Engineering
- Topics
mechatronics
programmable logic controllers
electric vehicles
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Engage about 150 Toledo high school students in after-school Mechatronics Clubs, using industry-standard Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) and game-centered, hands-on electric vehicle activities that end in a team competition.
- Connect students to career pathways through mentoring by Dana Incorporated engineers, PLC technician jobs, and scholarships and stackable mechatronics certificates at partner colleges.
- Evaluate the program through recruitment and retention data, analysis of student work, employer surveys and certificate completion rates, adding evidence on workforce training and engineering education.
More about the research
This three-year education project asks whether hands-on experiences built around electric vehicles can draw about 150 high school students from diverse economic backgrounds into mechatronics careers. Mechatronics combines mechanical, electrical and computer engineering.
Why it matters
This project could help high school students from underrepresented and lower-income backgrounds in Toledo enter well-paid technical careers, such as PLC technician jobs or engineering degrees. It could also help Northwest Ohio manufacturers find skilled workers. Its evaluation could show other regions how to design industry-linked mechatronics training.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Camille Crittenden
University of California-Berkeley, CA·Education Research
Place undergraduates from four University of California campuses as NanoLab Fellows in the Berkeley Marvell Nanofabrication Laboratory for an academic year plus summer, giving early hands-on semiconductor fabrication experience.
Yang Ye
Northeastern University, MA·Education Research
Pilot a multi-phase offshore wind experiential learning framework that gives community college and engineering students low-cost, immersive at-home training with personalized coaching powered by artificial intelligence.
Junhua Xin
Butler County Community College, PA·Education Research
Develop a lab manual of low-cost, hands-on nanofabrication experiments that closely represent chipmaking industry methods, designed for community colleges that lack cleanrooms and fabrication equipment.
The school
University of Toledo: 10 labs on PI Pages, $73M a year on research, 120 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.