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CSI Lab

Collaborative Sociotechnical Innovation (CSI) Lab

The Collaborative Sociotechnical Innovation (CSI) Lab includes the Calhoun Honors Discovery Program (CHDP) Focus Areas and the Marketplace of Ideas. Bringing together faculty and students across several VT programs as well as industry and nonprofit partners, the CSI Lab addresses workforce development and research related to collaborative problem setting and problem solving skills within sociotechnical innovation.

Results emerging from focus areas will be integrated in industry together with the graduating workforce that can implement results at scale. Participating Virginia Tech students will receive cutting-edge preparation across disciplines in systems approaches to CSI Lab and extensive collaborative experiences spanning industry, nonprofit, and academia. 

The Focus Areas are:

  • Innovation and Society
    Focus area will be exploring challenges that face society that are not covered by our other focus areas and our purpose is to develop innovative solutions. Project areas for Fall 2022 will be 1) improving the quality of and access to education in prisons, 2) upskilling, reskilling, and educating the workforce through data-centered mapped, software generated educational plans, and 3) developing a democratized tailor fit clothing solution.

  • Product / Platform Capabilities
    Focus on designing products that serve as a platform for enabling the capabilities of people, processes, or other products.  Projects in this area address the functional design of the products; production, distribution, and business potential; specific stakeholder and user requirements; and potential impacts. On-going projects include a thermoelectric power device addressing power insecurity and incluse aircraft interior designs. 

  • Advanced Manufacturing
    Projects in this area explore research themes that advance the working environment for the people as well as the technology. Previous projects have explored human factors in production, in-process verification, and improving processes using extended reality and cobots.

We focus on the following technologies in which our faculty have expertise:

  • Cyber Physical Systems 
  • Additive Manufacturing 
  • Internet of Things (IoT) 
  • Intelligent Systems 
  • Immersive Technologies 
  • Data Analytics and Digital Thread