CONGRESSIONAL VISITS DAY 2023 RECAP

The Material Advantage Student Program’s Congressional Visits Day (CVD) was held on April 18 and 19, 2023, in-person in Washington, D.C. The CVD is an annual event that gives students an opportunity to visit Washington to educate Congressional decision makers about the importance of funding for basic science, engineering and technology.

The CVD experience began with an opening reception on April 18, featuring informative and entertaining talks by: Alessandra Zimmermann of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Jakob Lindaas, of Senator Martin Heinrich’s office. After the talks concluded, the students were presented with some role-play in advance of their appointments on the following day.

As always, the students worked hard to schedule congressional visits with legislators and staffers on April 19, with some groups scheduling up to 8 congressional visits.

Additionally, the Washington D.C. Chapter of ASM International hosted a dinner which gave the students an opportunity to network and share their CVD experiences.

The Material Advantage CVD event was well-attended this year with a total of 36 students from the following universities:

Alfred University

Case Western Reserve University

Colorado School of Mines

Iowa State University

Northwestern University

The Pennsylvania State University

The University of Alabama

University of Connecticut

University of Florida

University of North Texas

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

University of Utah

University of Virginia

Washington State University

Continued thanks to Dr. David Bahr, head and professor of materials engineering at Purdue University, Dr. Iver Anderson, senior metallurgist at Ames Laboratory and adjunct professor in the Materials Science and Engineering department at Iowa State University, and Dr. Megan Malara, Director of Medical Modeling, Materials, and Manufacturing (M4) at the Center for Design and Manufacturing Excellence at The Ohio State University for conducting training and for their assistance in helping to coordinate the CVD event.

If you are a student and did not get a chance to participate this year, make sure that you plan to register EARLY for the 2024 event! Or if you are a professor/faculty advisor, make sure to plan on gathering a group together from your university.

Be sure to check back to the website for future updates: www.materialadvantage.org. It is an opportunity that you won’t want to miss!