Prof. Max Wetherington, Penn State University Materials Research Institute
This is the story of how a critical need in American industry met an innovative educational solution at Penn State's Materials Research Institute (MRI), a program spearheaded by Dr. Joshua Robinson, founder of the Silicon Carbide Innovation Alliance (SCIA). Dr. Robinson, drawing on his ties to the Appalachian region, was motivated by "a commitment to support pathways that help local communities navigate emerging economic transitions”.
The initiative, officially funded by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), has a straightforward, yet vital mission: "The goal of the program is simply workforce development". Its purpose is two-fold: to provide practical skills for current students and to retrain external individuals—those already in the workforce—whose jobs are shifting due to changes in industry.
This workforce development effort is inextricably linked to the national endeavor to grow the silicon carbide (SiC) industry in the United States. Silicon carbide has been identified by the U.S. Department of Energy as a "critical material" for the next decade, primarily because it's essential for power electronics. As Assistant Research Professor Max Wetherington explains, the material is necessary for "charging stations for electric cars" because the demand to "be charged fast" requires devices that can handle "high voltage, high current, high frequency," Wetherington said.
The SCIA center was formed at Penn State to "bring back research into the synthesis of silicon carbide," a field currently neglected by other universities. Companies in Appalachia are already manufacturing SiC, but they face a massive challenge: they need to "scale up dramatically"—perhaps "fivefold"—in the next decade. This industrial boom requires hiring people with precise skills, and that's where the training gap emerges.
The ARC program directly tackles a widespread industry complaint that students have to be retrained or have to be trained, significantly upon hiring. Employers lament that while students may put a technique on their resume, they often lack, what Wetherington said is "the practical knowledge of those tools or techniques," having only "watch[ed] someone use a technique once".
The ARC courses, therefore, focus on practical skill sets.
"This is more like practical skills to operate a tool," Wetherington said, emphasizing a vocational focus over the deep diving into basic science, fundamentals of physics, chemistry, and material science. The goal is simple: to make individuals competent in the day-to-day operation of equipment, being aware of ways to generate quality data and ensure that you're generating quality data.
The current three-year program offers three essential classes: Raman spectroscopy, X-ray scattering (XRD), and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM).
The classes are supported by external partners; HORIBA, for instance, provided support for the Raman spectroscopy class.
A major challenge for the program was optimizing hands-on training, as Wetherington said, "in order to really gain practical skills, you can't avoid spending time on the tool". To maximize throughput without overloading the classes (which run with 6 to 12 students), the program adopted a hybrid learning model:
Lecture Content: Lectures, focused on practical applications and knowledge, are recorded and kept intentionally short—around 20 minutes—so students can go through them on their own.
Lab Time: The emphasis shifts entirely to time in the lab, where staff scientists and instructors can focus on real-time conversations as students work through the tools.
The team further innovated by creating a dedicated training space using lower-cost, introductory tools.
“This ensures that we don't overload the tools that we already have in existence and make scheduling a logistical nightmare," he said, for ongoing research.
“For the Raman class, they even put the (HORIBA) MacroRAM on a mobile cart so it can be rented and moved across campus for in-situ measurements.”
The grand vision is for this effort to proliferate beyond Penn State.
The hope is that the entire course module—lectures, procedures, learning objectives, and even notes for the teachers—can be "packaged and then used at other facilities," he said, “ideally in places like community colleges, tech schools," where the demand is greatest. By building the course around lower-cost, yet research-grade tools, the blueprint is designed to be portable and easily adopted elsewhere.
As Wetherington concludes, these courses "will live on" even after the three-year funding period ends.
“They serve as a core structure for expanding into other technical areas, continuing the necessary process of providing individuals with better... practical skill sets" for Appalachia's emerging industries.
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