Saint-Gobain Joins UMass iCons Industry Consortium

The Integrated Concentration in STEM (iCons) Program has announced that Saint-Gobain, a 47-billion-euro company based in Paris, has joined the iCons Industry Consortium, a 13-year-old collaboration that brings top-notch student talent from UMass Amherst to consortium members.

The iCons Program provides undergraduates in STEM, business and policy with an interdisciplinary education that emphasizes problem-solving and critical thinking, as well as the opportunity to work on real-world challenges with industry consortium partners and UMass faculty members from various STEM, policy and business disciplines. Saint-Gobain intends to bring STEM interns from the university to its major R&D site in Northboro, Mass.

"Saint-Gobain is excited to join the iCons Industry Consortium at UMass, where we can participate in inspiring a diverse generation of innovators ​with the attitudes and skills needed to make the world less wasteful and hence more sustainable," says Charlies Bateman, R&D external relations manager at Saint-Gobain Research North America.

"The iCons Industry Consortium is thrilled to welcome Saint-Gobain as an important partner in innovation," says Scott Auerbach, founder and Mahoney Family Sponsored Executive Director of the iCons Program. "It seems fitting that Saint-Gobain and UMass Amherst will work together, leveraging our mutual strengths in interdisciplinary research and materials science and engineering."

To mark the launch of the collaboration, representatives from Saint-Gobain will come to the UMass Amherst campus this week to collaborate with iCons faculty members and students to launch interdisciplinary research efforts on construction materials and practices that are more sustainable by being less wasteful. Part of the week's events include the annual UMass iCons Idea Slam, which enhances student access to interdisciplinary research opportunities and increases company visibility for recruiting students.

The focus on this year's Idea Slam - improving sustainability in construction materials and processes - is motivated by the 600 million tons of building debris generated annually during construction, the need for less wasteful and more sustainable practices to combat climate change, and the expertise in advanced materials science and engineering across both Saint-Gobain and UMass Amherst. The goal of the Idea Slam is to inspire UMass Amherst undergraduates, graduate students and faculty to design and carry out research in collaboration with experts at Saint-Gobain that moves the needle on this real-world problem of construction waste.

More information about the iCons Program, the Industry Consortium and the Ideas Slam can be found at icons.cns.umass.edu.