Nicole Hoekstra

Department: Engineering Technology
Research Areas: Thermoplastic and Thermoset Processing, Mold Design, Measurements of Polymer Surfaces

Education
B.S. Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota (1994)
M.S. Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota (1996)

Professional Experience
Manufacturing Engineer, Upchurch Scientific (1996-1998)

Research Interests

• Reaction Injection Molding
• Using Designed Experiments to characterize the effect of processing and environmental variables on the quality of Polydicyclopentadiene
• Increasing mechanical properties by introducing various reinforcements
• Developing methods to quantify level of saturation of uncured PDCPD and cured PDCPD · Instrumentation to measure surface characteristics of polymers: Using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy to characterize polymers. · Design and construction of tooling for thermoplastic processing · Optimization of Fused Deposition Modeling · Undergraduate Research: Development of research activities with industry collaboration for undergraduate students. Since 1998:
• 61 undergraduate research projects have been supervised,
• 13 students have co-authored publications in journals and conference proceedings,
• 5 students have presented research in student sessions at conferences,
• 10 students have won or placed in national design contests

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