StuffMadeinMA.com • 2 0 1 8 • S T U F F 29
BY LIVIA GERSHON
e next generation
Manufacturing institutes offer students
and interns a chance to work on cutting-
edge products
P
eter Perez is working with a solar panel company to solve a
problem.
"The current industry standard protective backsheet is
reducing the efficiency of solar power all over the world,"
Perez said.
Perez is part of a team trying to build a better, more efficient
backsheet to improve panels' efficiency and safety. But Perez is not
an employee of the company or an engineering consultant. He's a
21-year old senior at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
All over the state, students in college, graduate school and even
high school are working with companies and university research
departments solving real-world high-tech problems under a broad
umbrella known as Manufacturing USA.
Founded by the federal government in 2012, Manufacturing USA –
previously called the National Network for Manufacturing
Innovation – consists of 14 institutes bringing together industry
and education partners. The state of Massachusetts has chosen to
invest in four of them, and some universities in the state participate
in some of the 10 other institutes.
Next-generation products
Perez is part of the Fabric Discovery Center at UMass Lowell, which
opened this July. The center brings together three of the
Manufacturing USA institutes: Cambridge-based Advanced
Functional Fabrics of America, which is the only one of the
institutes headquartered in Massachusetts, as well as Advanced
Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM), and NextFlex, the flexible
electronics institute.
P H O T O / M A T T H E W W R I G H T
P H O T O / M A T T H E W W R I G H T
Stephen Burbine is working with materials at the Fabric Discovery
Center to put sensors in clothes.
