Each summer TCNJ students have the opportunity to participate in the Mentored Undergraduate Summer Experience (MUSE). Students are awarded a research stipend and on-campus housing to work one-on-one with faculty conducting research over an eight week period. This summer the School of Engineering and its faculty have hosted more than ten MUSE projects.
One group of MUSE students mentored by Dr. Larry Pearlstein, a newly tenured Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is working with an interdisciplinary team of TCNJ faculty (from Communications and Economics to Nursing and Engineering) to study an intervention aimed at treating tobacco dependence among low-income populations. The group is working on research and development of a novel health device, which they call T-COM, that combines several proven modalities for treatment. The research group is working to create a handheld personal device that measures the carbon monoxide levels of a user with a sensor and combines motivational text, audio messaging, gamification features and built-in wireless network connectivity for a device used to assist with treatment. 2019 MUSE School of Engineering students, Jordan Sinoway ‘21 and Condor Gao ’21, are developing printed circuit boards for prototyping the touch-display module and the 3G modem. They will also work on software diagnostics for display and cloud database access. Sinoway shared that “undergraduate students rarely get the sort of development experience and hands-on work that Condor and I have been entrusted with as part of MUSE. These experiences will definitely benefit us in our future projects and applications for graduate school and jobs.” We look forward to seeing how this product will positively impact the treatment of tobacco dependence.
