MRI: Acquisition of 3D Imaging and Printing Instrumentation to Support Interdisciplinary Research at Indiana University of Pennsylvania

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This award will fund the acquisition of a structured white-light 3D surface scanner. Structured white-light scanning uses a projected line of light and optical cameras to capture the topography and texture of an object’s surface. Accurate and portable, these scanners have become popular in the fields of archaeology, engineering, and morphology. This new tool will have immediate impact in five departments across three colleges at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP). It will enhance the research environment by broadening the opportunities available to undergraduate researchers at IUP, promoting new collaborations on campus and with non-profit, government, and industry partners. IUP is a predominantly undergraduate institution serving a rural student demographic, including many first-generation college students, and providing hands-on research opportunities to students. The instrumentation will serve multiple disciplines and be available to all departments at IUP, with the potential for additional users from nearby academic institutions and regional non-profit and industry partners. This award will support researchers from the departments of Anthropology, Biology, Chemistry, Geoscience, and others at IUP, opening new opportunities for interdisciplinary research. The faculty and student research enabled by the requested instrumentation spans a wide range of topics, such as: 1) measuring center-of-mass change in extinct vertebrates, 2) morphometric identification of fossil vertebrates, 3) expanding a human remains and zooarcheological digital type library, 4) digital assessments of biostratinomy at the Cleveland-Lloyd dinosaur quarry and more accurate actualistic taphonomic experiments of fossil transport, 5) determining the relationship between personalized fit and biomechanical performance of officer personal protective equipment (PPE) and duty gear, 6) visualizing the morphology of the brain endocast, the middle and inner ear, and the tooth shape of Mesozoic mammals, and 7) analysis of protein binding site domains.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.