Clemson University has been awarded a $5,000 grant by AFL, an international company focused on manufacturing, engineering, and installing fiber optic products and equipment, for the Charles H. Townes Optical Science and Engineering Summer Program. The Townes Program is an undergraduate student experience where students from diverse backgrounds in materials science and engineering come to Clemson University for a 10-week summer program to work in laboratories at Clemson’s Center for Optical Materials Science and Engineering Technologies (COMSET). Between 8 and 12 students are accepted into the program every year and are immersed in a campus residency where they gain hands-on research experience and participate in training programs and workshops. Each participant in the Townes program spends 28 hours per week in the lab working on group projects, which they present to faculty, staff, and industry at a poster session at the end of the 10-week program.
Funding from AFL will support a summer scholarship for a student, mystery bag engineering design competition supplies, weekly professional development lunch & learns, student research project supplies, and a student research poster session. Clemson University is one of six Upstate organizations to receive community grants from AFL. These grants, made possible by AFL’s Community Outreach Program, were given to programs that align with AFL’s focus on STEM education and social service outreach.
