Pre-College Outreach:
The Center hosts one-day field trips to pre-college students, most recently to a group of Kings Park high school students. The one-day field trip includes a morning class-room lecture introducing materials science and engineering and thermal spray applications followed by an afternoon of laboratory demonstrations and experimentations. The program has been very successful and feedback from participants has been quite positive. One student stated that the field of materials science and engineering was not one that they had heard of prior to the Center field trip, but now has so much enthusiasm for it, wants to spend his summer researching a project in this very field. Qualified high school students are also offered summer research positions where they develop a project rooted in materials science and work closely with the Center's faculty, staff and graduate students learning laboratory protocol and procedures. During the 2003 summer, four high school students are interning at the Center on projects that will be submitted to the Intel and Westinghouse competitions.

REU Program and Minority Outreach:
A successful interaction between the UCSB MRSEC and CTSR was established during the summer of 2001 and continues today. This summer Wesley Francillon, now a Center graduate student, will again spend his summer working in Prof. C. Levi's group at UCSB for his Ph.D studies. Over the past several years, a number of undergraduates have interned in various Center programs and the positive impact that this has had upon their academic achievement has never been more apparent. This year, Cassandra Holzgartner and Jason Trelewicz, both of whom have been heavily involved with the Center, have received Undergraduate Recognition Awards, a highly prestigious university level acknowledgement of their talents. The minority-related initiatives continue in conjunction with Mr. Tyrone Bennnett, who works with the Department of Technology and Society. Mr. Bennettt continues to introduce large numbers of minority high school students to the Center as an entry into engineering technology.

Women in Science and Engineering:
Dr. Jim Quinn, Director of Laboratories in the Materials Science Department, is still active as the coordinator of the WISE program. The Center's staff works closely with high school WISE students during their research rotations, allowing them first-hand experience with the various thermal spray technologies. The lab participates in the research rotations several times a year.

International REU:
2002 was the first time the Center embarked on a new international REU thrust with the Czech Technical University & Institute of Plasma Physics in Prague. Two Stony Brook juniors, Cassandra Holzgartner and Angela Yuan spent six weeks working with Czech researchers. "Not only did I receive the opportunity to study abroad, but I also engaged with intelligent and gifted faculty and students. I gained a perspective that few other students can relate to but encourage them to pursue ", Cassandra Holzgartner. This upcoming summer, the program will be expanded to include non-Stony Brook students.

High School Teachers:
The Center will further establish its relationships with high school teachers by submitting an RET proposal that will allow us to work closely with local teachers during the summer months. This will act as a seed for future plans of creating a deep connectivity with the high school teachers from under-represented school districts throughout Long Island.