I want to thank you for electing me as your president for this coming year. It is a great honor—one that I do not take lightly. I intend to continue the tradition of past presidents to strengthen this society, its members, and the profession that it serves.

I would like to argue that engineering education is facing the need for fundamental changes. Using the same poetic license with spelling that gave us the 3Rs—reading, writing, and arithmetic--I would suggest that changes are needed in engineering education to address the 3Ns: numbers, needs, and new knowledge.

By some estimates, 25% of the current engineering workforce will be eligible for retirement in the next five years. There is also clear evidence that engineering education programs in the U.S. are falling short in attracting and retaining those who should form the vanguard of the next generation of engineers. This evidence includes declining interest in engineering education from U.S.-born students and a perception by many women and under-represented minorities that the climate of our programs does not welcome them. Although the enrollment of women at most universities is now approaching 60%, the enrollment of women in engineering programs is about 20% and, according to some data, is decreasing.

Changes in the practice of engineering are creating the need for modifications of the content of engineering programs—that is, what students are to learn. Much of the structure of the current educational system was set in the 1950s, when the practice was very different. It is obvious that engineering is now conducted on a global scale. And though industrial practice is heavily oriented toward teamwork, many engineering professors discourage cooperative work by labeling it as “cheating.”

The Engineer of 2020 report concludes that an engineer in 2020 must be capable of operating in a world where “social, cultural, political, and economic forces will continue to shape and affect the success of technological innovation.” The report goes on to state, “Not only will technology change quickly, the social-political-economic world in which engineers work will change continuously. In this context, it will not be this or that particular knowledge that engineers will need but rather the ability to learn new things quickly and the ability to apply knowledge to new problems and new contexts.”

The rapid expansion of technical knowledge has caused some people to suggest that engineering programs should be extended to a five-year course of study. At the same time, by some estimates, the amount of technical information is doubling every two years, so that half of what a student learns in his or her first year of study will be outdated by the third year. We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist using technologies that haven’t yet been invented in order to solve problems we don’t even know we have.

Recent scholarly research has identified new knowledge regarding how to improve the pedagogy and learning environments for engineering students. How effectively we teach is as important as what we teach, and student learning needs to be our focus.  To quote John Dewey, “Teaching and learning are correlative or corresponding processes, as much so as selling and buying. One might as well say he has sold when no one has bought, as to say that he has taught when no one has learned.” Learning is a process that can be measured and can be improved.

The 3Ns define the why, what, and how of the changes. The American Society for Engineering Education has undertaken a number of activities to help address these 3Ns. In future columns, I will outline some of them.

James L. Melsa is the president of ASEE and Dean Emeritus at the Iowa State University College of Engineering.

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ASEE’s Publication Department is proud to announce twelve awards from The Association of Educational Publishers (AEP), Awards for Publication Excellence (APEX), The Communicator and Print Magazine for Editorial, Illustration and Design selections from the 2006/2007 year of Prism Magazine.

Association of Educational Publishers (AEP)

• Winner: “Your Move,” Design and Illustration
• Distinguished Achievement Award: “Databytes,” Illustration

Awards for Publication Excellence (Apex)

Awards of Excellence

• “A Future Engineer?, “ Feature Writing
• “Turned On In Texas,” Magazine and Journal Writing
• “21st Century Prof.,” Illustration and Typography
• “The House That Kim Built,” Interviews and Personal Profiles
• “Body Language,” Covers
• “Let Go of My Legos,” Spreads
  Grand Prize
• “Faculty Figures,” Design and Illustration

The Communicator Awards

Honorable Mention:

• December Prism, Entire Issue
• September Prism, Entire Issue

Print Magazine

• Winner: “Japan’s Slow Moving Tide,” Illustration

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The ASEE Engineering Deans Institute (EDI) is an annual meeting among engineering deans, industry leaders and those in important roles in research and government to gather and focus on a topic of timely relevance to engineering and engineering education. Deans share best practices, learn about career prospects for their graduates and develop a voice for engineering education and the role of engineering in society. The EDI, sponsored by the Executive Board of the ASEE Engineering Deans Council, encourages the cultivation and amplification of collaborative relationships among engineering education stakeholders from across the nation.

From April 15-18, deans of engineering gathered in San Juan, Puerto Rico, for the 2007 EDI, entitled “Diversity in Engineering.” The event was packed with energetic dialogue on the role of diversity in engineering education, both in the recruitment of engineering faculty and in the admission of students. The discussions placed an emphasis on the importance of stakeholder collaboration to encourage interest in engineering among students at the K-12 level, with particular attention paid to diversity in the engineering pipeline to graduate schools. The meeting also contained an industry-sponsored executive panel that discussed the economic imperative of diversity in engineering education, and a dialogue centering on diversifying the US engineering workforce.

Keynote speakers at the event included Dr. Shirley Jackson, President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Lynn Dugle, Vice President, Engineering Technology and Quality for Raytheon Network Centric Systems; Ursula Burns, Senior Vice President and President, Business Group Operations, Xerox Corporation; Robin Willner, Vice President, Global Community Initiatives, IBM; Dr. Ioannis N. Miaoulis, President and Director, Boston Science Museum; Carol Bartz, Executive Chairman of the Board, Autodesk, Inc.; Dr. Ray M. Haynes, Corporate Director, Technical Alliances Center, Office of Programs and Technology, Northrop Grumman Corporation; and Xavier Fouger, Director, PLM Academy, Dassault Systemes, Inc.

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The Journal of Engineering Education (JEE), ASEE’s research journal, has drawn high ratings from the internationally recognized Thomson ISI Science Citation Index and the Social Science Citation Index. 

Rated by the indexes for the first time, JEE placed third out of 22 journals in the “Education, Scientific Disciplines” category of the Science Citation Index Expanded, which includes engineering. The rating is based on the widely cited Impact Factor, a measure of the degree to which a journal’s articles are cited.  JEE is the highest ranked among the six engineering journals listed in this category.

In the Social Sciences Citation Index the journal is listed in the category “Education, Educational Research,” where it placed 8th out of 100 journals.  JEE is the only engineering journal to have earned a listing in this category.  “We are of course very pleased with both of these ratings, especially in the highly competitive social science category of educational research,” remarked Jack Lohmann, editor of JEE.

Jim Melsa, ASEE president, said, “The ASEE community can be very proud of our research journal.  To be so highly placed after only four years as a engineering education research journal is a testament to the quality of scholarship by our colleagues in this rapidly developing discipline.  It is clear that JEE is having a major influence on the educational preparation of future engineers.”  

JEE submitted its application to Thomson in January 2003 and was listed in the two indices following a two-year evaluation period. Fewer than 5 percent of over 8,000 journals are listed on both indices. For more information about JEE, its strategic plan, and annual report, see www.asee.org/jee.

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The engineering community has lost an industry innovator and distinguished educator with the passing of Arthur T. Murphy, Jr., 78, on July 2, 2007. A good friend to ASEE, Art contributed generously to the cause of engineering education, serving as ASEE’s Vice President of Finance from 2001 to 2005, organizing conference sessions, and chairing the middle-Atlantic section, graduate studies, and instrumentation divisions. Art was the DuPont Co. representative to ASEE for several years and a recipient of ASEE’s Western Electric Teaching Award. He additionally helped secure DuPont’s sponsorship and endowment of ASEE’s Minorities in Engineering Education Award, when this award faced financial difficulty.

Art’s involvement in academia spanned his lifetime, beginning with his undergraduate electrical engineering studies at Syracuse University and M.S. and Doctoral electrical engineering programs at Carnegie Mellon University. Subsequently appointed Brown Professor and Head of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie, Art was responsible for creating the Carnegie Mellon Solar Energy Lab. He served as Vice President and Dean of Engineering at Widener University, head of Electrical Engineering at Wichita State University, Acting President of Pennsylvania Institute of Technology, and Visiting Professor at M.I.T. and the University of Manchester. Art was an active member of IEEE, AAAS, ASME, and numerous honor societies.

In 1979, Art joined E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Co. Inc., introducing the company’s first 3-D computer-aided design system, as well as developing a filter component to control electromagnetic interference (EMI), and working on electronic connectors. His career at DuPont took him to Japan for research on semiconductors and back to the U.S. as an R&D university liaison and internal company consultant.

Art is survived by his wife Jane and his seven children, as well as grandchildren. Memorial contributions may be made to The Arthur T. and Jane M. Murphy Endowed Scholarship for Study Abroad c/o the L.C. Smith College of Engineering & Computer Science, Syracuse University.—Robin Tatu

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More Information: http://www.asee.org/annual2008

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ASEE’s flagship event, the Annual Conference & Exposition, drew more than 3,500 attendees to Honolulu June 24-27.

The conference opened with a beachside picnic presented by Dassault Systemes, followed by performances of music, song and dance from Hawaii, Tahiti and New Zealand, including a Samoan fireknife dance.

The main plenary highlighted innovations driving engineering curricula and practical skills development. Featured speakers were Philippe Forestier, Executive Vice President, Alliances, Marketing & Communications with Dassault Systemes, and Leah H. Jamieson, John A. Edwardson Dean of the College of Engineering and Ransburg Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. Mr. Forestier addressed innovative industrial practices and their impacts on engineering skills at a global level, reflecting on working methods that require new engineering skills and inspire curricula for engineers of the 21st century. Ms. Jamieson explored the role of experiential education and the themes of context and time in designing effective, efficient, affordable curricula that prepare students for leadership roles in addressing the global technological, economic and societal challenges of the 21st century.

In addition to technical sessions, workshops and paper presentations, attendees witnessed product demonstrations and tech sessions from some of the 22 participating corporate sponsors and mingled with representatives of 91 exhibiting companies. Sixty-two golfers participated in the inaugural ASEE Open, a scramble format golf tournament presented by Autodesk at Luana Hills Country Club.

Photo Slideshow:
http://www.asee.org/conferences/annual/2007/hawaiislideshow/index.php

More Information:
http://www.asee.org/conferences/annual/2007/

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Campus Representative award winners from the 13th annual “Spread the Word” recruitment campaign were honored at the Campus Representative Reception during the annual conference in Honolulu. Shown here with Vice President for Member Affairs J. P. Mohsen, accepting the awards for Society-wide bests, are, in left photo, David I. Schwartz, accepting on behalf of Lisa Schneider, Cornell University, for most professional members recruited, and Dean Bob Meyer, accepting on behalf of Pete D. Heimdahl, University of Wisconsin-Stout, for highest percentage faculty membership. The complete list of award winners can be found at www.asee.org/activities/organizations/campus/index.cfm

2007 ASEE Campus Representative Award Winners:
http://www.asee.org/activities/organizations/campus/07winners.cfm

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ASEE Fellows Named

The following members received the Fellow grade of membership in recognition of outstanding contributions to engineering or engineering technology education. This distinction was conferred by ASEE’s Board of Directors at the awards banquet held at the ASEE annual conference in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Benjamin Garver Lamme Award

Roland Haden, Dean Emeritus of the Dwight Look College of Engineering at Texas A&M University, received the Benjamin Garver Lamme Award in recognition of his more than 40-year commitment to the improvement of engineering education. He was cited for superior leadership, exceptional teaching ability and pioneering research, as well as his personal dedication to the advancement of the engineering profession through exemplary service to industry, professional societies and volunteer organizations.

Haden taught and was an administrator at the University of Oklahoma, Arizona State University, Louisiana State University and Texas A&M University. At Texas A&M, he was founding director of the Institute for Solid State Electronics. He retired in 2002 as Vice Chancellor for Engineering, Dean of the Look College of Engineering, and Director of the Texas Engineering Experiment Station. As Vice Chancellor, he was also responsible for the Texas Engineering Extension Service and the Texas Transportation Institute.

Haden is a Fellow of ASEE and a member of the ASEE Academy of Fellows. He is a Life Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and a member of the National Society of Professional Engineers and the Texas Society of Professional Engineers (TSPE). He was chair of the Professional Engineers in Education Division of the TSPE, the nation’s largest state professional engineering organization, and served twice as chair of the Texas Deans of Engineering organization. He is a licensed professional engineer in Texas and Oklahoma and, formerly, in Arizona. He was named an inaugural member of the Texas Governor’s Science and Technology Council by then-Gov. George W. Bush, having been appointed to a similar post in Arizona.

Within ASEE, Haden was a member of ASEE’s first Strategic Planning Committee; a member and past chair of the General Electric Senior Research Award Committee, and chair of the Public Policy Committee as well as the 1998 Public Policy Colloquium in Washington, D.C. He served twice on the Executive Committee of the ASEE Engineering Deans Council. He is also a recipient of the ASEE Donald E. Marlowe Award and the Freedoms Foundation George Washington Medal.

Established in 1928, the Benjamin Garver Lamme Award recognizes excellence in teaching, contributions to research and technical literature, and achievements that advance the profession of engineering college administration.

Frederick J. Berger Award

Edward Tezak, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor of Mechanical Engineering Technology at Alfred State College (ASC), received the Frederick J. Berger Award in recognition of his work at the national, state and campus levels to promote and enhance engineering technology as a distinct discipline and profession.

Affiliated with ASEE since 1984, Tezak served as Campus Liaison Representative for the U. S. Military Academy at West Point until 1990 and was recognized as the 1990 Outstanding Section Campus Liaison Representative for the Middle Atlantic Section. He served in the ASEE Mechanics Division as a member of the Executive Committee, Program Chair and Division Chair, and on the ASEE Board of Directors as the Professional Interest Council III chair. He has been affiliated with the Engineering Technology Division (ETD) since 1993 and has worked on the two- and four-year ETD Surveys and with the ETD Long-Range Planning Committee. He represented the State University of New York Institute of Technology at Utica/Rome and ASC on the Engineering Technology Council and also served as the Campus Liaison Representative for ASC. He received the Outstanding Educator Award in 2001 from the ASEE St. Lawrence Section. He was the ETD Assistant Program Chair for the ASEE Annual Conference for the Engineering Technology Division in Montreal and the ETD Program Chair for the Annual Conference in Nashville. Since 2004, he has served as Secretary of the ETD.

Prior to returning to teaching in 1999, Tezak served as Dean of the School of Engineering Technology at ASC and as Dean of the School of Information Systems and Engineering Technology at the SUNY Institute of Technology. He served on the staff and faculty of the U.S. Military Academy (USMA) at West Point for 20 years and was on two Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) accreditation steering committees. He was a tenured faculty member of the Department of Mechanics at USMA, and served as Associate Dean of the Academic Board during the last four and a half years of his tenure. His academic interests are engineering mechanics, mechanics of materials, fluid mechanics, graphics/CAD, electromechanical analysis, computer applications, vibrations and space mechanics. He has been a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) since 1977 and an MET ABET program evaluator since 2002.

He has been active in the New York State Engineering Technology Association (NYSETA), as well as serving as the institutional representative on the Council for Engineering Technology for New York State (CETNYS) both at SUNY Institute of Technology and ASC. He has been a member-at-large on the executive committee of the ETA since 2000 and Secretary/Treasurer of CETNYS since 2000.

The Frederick J. Berger Award, established in 1990, recognizes and encourages excellence in engineering technology education. It is presented to both an individual and a school or department for demonstrating outstanding leadership in curriculum, techniques, or administration in engineering technology education.

Chester F. Carlson Award

Rebecca Richards-Kortum, Stanley C. Moore Professor and Chair of Bioengineering at Rice University, received the Chester F. Carlson Award in recognition of her work to boost scientific literacy while developing creative educational materials that empower students to think critically and devise practical solutions to global health issues.

Through the Beyond Traditional Borders initiative at Rice, Richards-Kortum developed a four-year multi-disciplinary program that promotes engineering and engineering technology on a global scale. In addition to serving as a springboard for research and pilot testing of new biomedical technologies, the program includes new courses in Bioengineering & World Health designed for non-science majors, students from multiple disciplines in Global Health Technologies, and middle school and high school students.

Richards-Kortum’s own research involves developing miniature microscopes and spectrometers to enable early detection of precancerous changes in living tissue. Her research group is currently developing fluorescence-based techniques for the diagnosis of cervical pre-cancer in vivo.

Richards-Kortum currently serves on the National Advisory Council for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health and directs an Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training grant in Optical Biomolecular Engineering, funded by the National Science Foundation.

Prior to joining Rice, Richards-Kortum held the Cockrell Family Chair in Engineering and was a professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin, where she was also a Distinguished Teaching Professor. Winner of numerous awards, she was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor in 2002, was elected to the Academy of Distinguished Teachers at UT Austin in 2001 and received the Chancellor’s Council Outstanding Teaching Award for 2002.

The Chester F. Carlson Award, sponsored by the Xerox Corporation, recognizes an individual innovator in engineering education who, by motivation and ability to extend beyond the accepted tradition, has made a significant contribution to the profession.

DuPont Minorities in Engineering Award

Gerhard Paskusz, Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering at the University of Houston, received the DuPont Minorities in Engineering Award for 2007. Paskusz was recognized for founding one of the first Minorities in Engineering Programs (MEP) at a major research university, the Program for Mastery in Engineering Studies (PROMES) at the University of Houston.

As a teacher, mentor, program director, and national MEP representative, he has helped hundreds of under-represented minority students succeed in the engineering profession.

Paskusz, who has been a professor of electrical engineering, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies and Associate Dean of Engineering, started PROMES in 1974 and remained its director until he retired in 2005. He continues to be a mentor to the staff and new director.

PROMES provides academic advising, workshops, access to financial aid and scholarships, work-study jobs on campus and summer internships for engineering students, who also participate in special skill building and problem-solving classes. Other services include events that enable students to meet former PROMES students who are now practicing engineers. Virtually all of the minority students at the University of Houston participate in PROMES. For decades, Paskusz secured the funding to establish and maintain these programs. They now serve as a model for related programs, both local and national.

Over the years, Paskusz expanded PROMES to include high school and middle school bridge programs, such as the Mentoring and Enrichment Seminar in Engineering Training (MESET), a summer program for high school seniors, which provided hundreds of under-represented minorities an opportunity to explore engineering as a career; the Gulf Coast Chapter of Texas Alliance for Minorities in Engineering (GCAME) Summer Camp for students completing the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th grades; and the ASCE Summer Camp, which is a low-cost one-week extension of GCAME Summer Camp supported by ASCE.

Paskusz has been active at the state and national level through organizations like the Texas Alliance for Minorities in Engineering (TAME), the National Association of Minority Engineering Program Administrators (NAMEPA), ASEE and the ASEE Minorities in Engineering Division (MIND).

Within ASEE, Paskusz served as general chair of the Frontiers in Education Conference (1980) and editor of the special Effective Teaching issue of ASEE’s Engineering Education, Vol. 73, No. 5. Paskusz is an ASEE Fellow, a member of the ASEE Academy of Fellows, and a recipient of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering’s Reginald H. Jones Award.

The DuPont Minorities in Engineering Award, endowed by the DuPont Co., honors an engineering educator for exceptional achievement in increasing participation and retention of minorities and women in engineering.

Clement J. Freund Award

Les Leone, Assistant Dean of Engineering Undergraduate Studies at Michigan State University (MSU), received the Clement J. Freund Award in recognition of his significant role in cooperative education and engineering education.

Leone served on the board of the ASEE Cooperative Education Division (CED), on committees and as Program Chair for an annual conference. During the period of criteria revision for Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), he assumed a critical role as an advocate for quality cooperative education and served as liaison between CED and ABET, arranging important discussions among key leaders. His critical understanding of the need to better assess the learning outcomes of cooperative education programs has informed discussions, decision-making, and funding of directed research.

As an educator and administrator, Leone built cooperative engineering education into a highly organized and professional program that places over 300 students annually and occupies a major place at MSU’s College of Engineering. He created several administrative processes that help this large program run efficiently and make it accessible to all engineering students. These include a computerized placement and resume service and a career fair that has grown to include both co-op and permanent placements. As a researcher, he is a recognized leader in the field of cooperative education.

As director of the Applied Engineering Sciences Program, which is an interdisciplinary engineering major with over 200 students enrolled, Leone created an alumni advisory board, initiated a successful program endowment fund, and oversees the conferring of an annual distinguished alumni award. He is currently developing the necessary materials and processes for a possible first-time ABET accreditation visit for the program in 2010.

Prior to serving as assistant dean, he served for 20 years as director of cooperative engineering education, developing and promoting employment opportunities that benefited both students and employers. Each year, he coordinated the needs and interests of 400 co-op students in nine engineering majors with more than 200 employers. Until recently, he helped coordinate the Career Gallery/Comm-Sci-Tech Exchange, a career fair for graduating seniors and cooperative education applicants. The 2006 event involved 160 employer organizations, 250 employer representatives, and more than 2,000 students.

Leone is co-author of the best-selling freshman textbook, “Engineering Your Future,” now in its sixth edition, and is the author or co-author of 26 scholarly publications. An active member of ASEE since 1980, Leone has also been actively involved in the Midwest Cooperative Education and Internship Association and the Michigan Council for Internships and Cooperative Education. He is a recipient of ASEE’s Alvah K. Borman Award; two Best Session Awards at ASEE’s Conference for Industry and Education Collaboration; the Michigan Council for Cooperative Education’s Don Hunt Service Award for outstanding leadership in Michigan cooperative education, and the Michigan State University’s Distinguished Academic Staff Award. He has also been named a Distinguished Fellow of the Triangle Fraternity for Engineers, Architects, and Scientists.

The Clement J. Freund Award recognizes an individual in business, industry, government, or education who has made a significant impact on cooperative education programs in engineering and engineering technology.

John L. Imhoff Award

Jack Lohmann, Vice Provost for Institutional Development and professor of Industrial Systems Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, received the John L. Imhoff Award in recognition of his consistent and effective leadership in advancing global cooperation in engineering education and in articulating a vision for its implementation.

Lohmann has made a significant impact by contributing to the internationalization of the Journal of Engineering Education (JEE), of which he is now editor; initiating the Global Colloquia on Engineering Education and creating international experiences for students and faculty.

Lohmann’s principal responsibilities at Georgia Tech include institutional development, review, and accreditation of academic programs. He most recently served as associate dean in the College of Engineering. He has also held appointments at the National Science Foundation, the University of Michigan, the University of Southern California, and l’École Centrale Paris in France.

Lohmann’s research and teaching interests are in the field of capital budgeting and economic decision analysis, and he has also provided leadership in a number of educational initiatives involving accreditation, globalization, and engineering education research. External sponsors of his work include: AT&T, Continental AG, GM, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft Research, Motorola, National Science Foundation, Procter & Gamble, Sloan Foundation, and the United Engineering Foundation. Lohmann is a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers, ASEE and the European Society for Engineering Education.

Lohmann’s recent international contributions have included major roles in the development of Georgia Tech’s “International Plan,” a comprehensive, degree-long program designed to instill global competence in any discipline, and a report, “In Search of Global Engineering Excellence: Educating the Next Generation of Engineers for the Global Workplace,” a year-long study by eight international universities on the state of global engineering education. He was awarded the Global Engineering and Engineering Technology Educator Award by the ASEE International Division.

He has been involved with ASEE since 1979 and has held most positions in the Engineering Economy and Industrial Engineering Divisions. He serves on the ASEE International Advisory Committee and as the General Co-Chair of the 6th Global Colloquium on Engineering Education to be held in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2007, and has contributed to past Global Colloquia. As editor of JEE, he has broadened the global presence of the journal, which now receives 25% of its submissions internationally and has 20% of its advisory board drawn internationally. He has added a new international associate editor, and plans to publish a special joint issue with the journal of the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI) on the “Globalization of Engineering Education” in 2007. Lohmann has also developed a strategic plan to make JEE the world-recognized publication for engineering education research.

The John L. Imhoff Award, endowed by the estate of the late Professor John L. Imhoff, recognizes an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the industrial engineering discipline, who exemplifies the highest standards of the professorate in industrial engineering, and has demonstrated global cooperation and understanding through leadership and other initiatives.

Sharon Keillor Award for Women in Engineering Education

Julia Ross, Professor and Chair of the Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Department at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), received the Sharon Keillor Award for Women in Engineering Education for 2007 in recognition of her exceptional contributions as a researcher, educator, and administrator.

Her research into the role of bacterial adhesion and subsequent biofilm formation in the pathogenesis of infection in the cardiovascular system has been at the forefront of biological and biomedical engineering. Her work has won grants worth more than $8 million, including several R01 grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Whitaker Foundation, and led to numerous publications.

Ross also maintains an active curriculum research program focusing on workforce development. She has led the design and development of the INSPIRES (Increasing Student Participation, Interest and Recruitment in Engineering and Science) Curriculum, a standards-based high school program for science and technology education that combines authentic real-world problems, inquiry-based learning, and hands-on experiences to build students’ problem solving skills, and scientific and technological literacy. The curriculum, which aims to increase awareness of and interest in engineering and science careers, has been implemented at the high school level within the Baltimore County Public Schools.

As principal investigator for INSPIRES’ curriculum development, Ross leads a multidisciplinary team with collaborators at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, George Washington University, Baltimore County schools, and industry, and secured a $1.6 million NSF grant. The team comprises engineering educators, a medical educator and physician, a curriculum development expert, experienced high school teachers and practicing engineers.

In collaboration with Dr. Tayrn Bayles (UMBC), Ross has offered two-day summer workshops on campus to train teachers to use the INSPIRES Curriculum, training 36 teachers to date. Their work was recently recognized with an invitation to participate in the National Symposium on Professional Development for Engineering and Technology Education. Their initial curriculum module, “Engineering in Health Care: A Hemodialysis Case Study,” is currently available for adoption by teachers interested in participating in the research study. The module teaches students about dialysis, from theory to application, and focuses on a teenage patient with kidney failure. Science and technology education teachers in Maryland have been implementing the program in selected high schools for the past year. By the end of the 2006-2007 academic year, they will have reached approximately 400 students in six counties with broad demographic distribution.

The Sharon Keillor Award for Women in Engineering Education recognizes and honors women who have an outstanding record in teaching engineering students and reasonable performance histories of research and service within an engineering school.

James H. McGraw Award

Warren Hill, Dean of the College of Applied Science and Technology at Weber State University, received the James H. McGraw Award for 2007. Hill was recognized for his contributions and leadership for more than 25 years as a dean of engineering technology programs at Weber State University; leader in the development of Project Lead the Way in the state of Utah; his activities with the Engineering Technology Council, Engineering Technology Division and Engineering Technology Leadership Institute; and his work as a program evaluator, commissioner and member of the executive board of the Technology Accreditation Commission of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (TAC of ABET).

Hill is considered a leader in bringing K-12 pre-engineering programs to the State of Utah and currently serves as the Affiliate Director for the State of Utah for Project Lead the Way, a nationwide high school and middle school pre-engineering program.

He has written and presented a number of papers at various conferences, is currently a reviewer for the Journal of Engineering Technology, and is the co-author of three patents. He currently sits on the executive committee of the TAC of ABET after serving as a TAC Commissioner for the past five years, and having made 18 accreditation visits. Hill is on the board of directors for the Northern Utah Academy of Math, Engineering and Science, an early college charter high school. Finally, he also serves as a reviewer for the Advanced Technology Education program of the National Science Foundation.

Hill is a Senior Life Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and is also a member of the American Society for Engineering Education and the Society for College and University Planning. He is a past member of the ASEE Engineering Technology Division (ETD) Board, the ASEE Engineering Technology Council (ETC) Board, and the Engineering Technology Leadership Institute (ETLI) Board. While on the ETD board, he served as the newsletter editor and as the ETD Conference Chair when the ASEE Annual Conference was in Anaheim, CA. He is currently an ad hoc member of the ETC Board representing the Council on the Data Collection Committee of the Engineering Deans Council. He has twice hosted the ETLI conference at Weber State University. He is a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of Colorado and is the past president of the Southern Chapter of the Professional Engineers of Colorado, a Division of the National Society of Professional Engineers.

Established in 1950, the James H. McGraw Award, sponsored by the ASEE Engineering Technology Council and funded by the Glencoe Division of MacMillan/McGraw-Hill, is presented for outstanding contributions to engineering technology education.

Fred Merryfield Design Award

John Enderle, Director of the Biomedical Engineering Department at the University of Connecticut, received the Fred Merryfield Design Award in recognition of his contributions to senior design projects for persons with disabilities.

Enderle has been an editor for the annual National Science Foundation book series, “Engineering Senior Design Projects to Aid Persons With Disabilities,” since its inception in 1989. These books have described almost 2,000 projects to benefit the elderly disabled throughout the United States. A member of the Engineering Accreditation Commission for the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), he has produced many articles on senior design and the accreditation process. He has also co-written the textbook, “Introduction to Biomedical Engineering,” which has been adopted internationally, and has published extensively on oculomotor and muscle research for over twenty years.

Enderle’s current research involves characterizing the neurosensory control of the human visual and auditory system. The objective is to investigate and ultimately produce a model that will predict the head and eye movement responses to any combination of visual, auditory, and vestibular inputs in a changing environment. Since the models developed are driven by subsystems, modeled mathematically and parameterized by experimental data, one can observe phenomenon down to the molecular level as well as the system level to observe performance. The linear muscle model developed by Enderle and his co-workers is the first model to have the static and dynamic characteristics of muscle.

Enderle is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE); the current editor-in-chief of the EMB Magazine; an Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) Distinguished Lecturer; Past-President of the IEEE-Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS); EMBS Conference Chair for the 22nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE EMBS and World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering in 2000; a past EMBS Vice-President for Publications & Technical Activities and Vice-President for Member and Student Activities; Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE); an ABET Program Evaluator for Bioengineering Programs; a member of the Engineering Accreditation Commission; a member of the American Society for Engineering Education and a past chair of the ASEE Biomedical Engineering Division Chair; and a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society. He was elected as a Member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering in 2003, with membership limited to 200 persons. He is a recipient of the ASEE Theo C. Pilkington Outstanding Educator Award; the University of Connecticut AAUP Excellence Award in University Service; the President’s Award for Significant Contributions to the Rocky Mountain Bioengineering Symposium; University of Connecticut ECE Department Excellence in Teaching Award; and the EMBS Service Award.

The Fred Merryfield Design Award, sponsored by CH2M Hill, recognizes an engineering educator for excellence in teaching of engineering design and acknowledges other significant contributions related to engineering design teaching.

National Outstanding Teaching Award

Dennis A. Silage, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Temple University, received the National Outstanding Teaching Award in recognition of his significant pedagogical innovations in undergraduate analog and digital communications, capstone senior design and high school outreach programs.

Silage, faculty advisor and trustee for the Temple University Amateur Radio Club (K3TU), has promoted the reintroduction of Amateur Radio into ECE capstone senior design projects. Undergraduate student Amateur Radio projects under his supervision have twice been awarded the Vincent Bendix Award for IEEE Region 2. He has supervised a magnet school program in aerospace engineering and Amateur Radio satellite communications at Northeast High School, Philadelphia (W3YC). For this outreach he received the American Radio Relay League Technical Achievement Award (2001).

He has promoted the use of simulation in the pedagogy of digital communication systems, which is traditionally taught to undergraduate students by examining the response and the performance of a system only as a set of analytical equations. He has written “Digital Communication Systems Using SystemVue,” and developed a curriculum that couples the traditional analytical approach with the simulation of the system for further design, analysis, insight and motivation.

Silage has extended his teaching of digital communications to an outreach program for middle, junior and senior high school students. The Marconi Challenge, which was originally conceived to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Guglielmo Marconi’s transatlantic wireless transmission in 2001, addresses the design objectives of wireless data communication using infrared light. He presented the Marconi Challenge at the 2006 ASEE Workshop on K-12 Engineering Education.

He served as assistant and associate professor of Bioengineering at the School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania (1975-1984), where he contributed to research into the anatomical, neurological and metabolic control of ventilation, the assessment of clinical pulmonary mechanics and the use of computer graphics in pulmonary function testing. In 1984 he became an associate, and now full professor, in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering at Temple University while holding a joint appointment at the School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. He assisted in the transition of the college to an engineering program from solely an engineering technology program and supervised the first M.S.E.E. candidate of the graduate program (1988). He served as Associate Chair (1989-1993) and director of the Electrical Engineering Technology program (1999-2003).

Silage is director of the System Chip Design Center of the department, which had developed an interdisciplinary educational initiative (EE and ME: Together Again) in the electro-thermal performance of high-speed CMOS devices. His research is in the behavioral synthesis of digital communications systems utilizing fine-grained programmable gate array devices, interprocess communication, fixed-point algorithms and the design verification environment.

He was treasurer of the 1990 ASEE Frontiers in Education conference, which met in Vienna and Budapest. He received the ASEE Zone I Outstanding Campus Representative award (1996) and was Program Chair (1995-1998) for the ASEE Middle Atlantic Section and Section Chair (1999-2000). He is now the Vice Chair and 2007 Program Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Division of ASEE. He is also the organizer for the 2007 Middle Atlantic Section Meeting to be held at Temple University in Fall 2007. He is the department Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) Coordinator and an Engineering Accreditation Commission program evaluator for both electrical engineering and computer engineering. He is a recipient of the College of Engineering, Temple University, Alumni Outstanding Faculty Award (2000) and the Outstanding Service Award (2007).

Silage is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and a member of its computer, signal processing, engineering in medicine and biology and education societies, as well as a member of ASEE.

The National Outstanding Teaching Award recognizes an engineering or engineering technology educator for excellence in outstanding classroom performance, contributions to the scholarship of teaching, and participation in ASEE Section meetings and local activities.

Robert G. Quinn Award

Ann Saterbak, Lecturer and Director of Laboratory Instruction in the Department of Bioengineering at Rice University, received the Robert G. Quinn Award in recognition of her work in developing a nationally recognized, state-of-the-art undergraduate laboratory in bioengineering.

Saterbak developed the course structure, wrote and edited protocols, and produced laboratory manuals for five courses that reach across the breadth of bioengineering. Her laboratory courses in cell and tissue culture have been a model for several other departments. Two tissue-based laboratory courses have been considered particularly innovative, with curricular materials based on the latest research in tissue engineering. Collaborating with colleagues, Saterbak also developed a sophomore-level Bioengineering Fundamentals course that is organized around the novel idea of teaching the applications of the conservation laws to biological and medical systems.

She co-authored a white paper for the Whitaker Foundation education conference that was later published in Annals of Biomedical Engineering. With support from a National Science Foundation Division of Undergraduate Education grant, Saterbak co-authored the book, “Bioengineering Fundamentals.”

Saterbak collaborated extensively with other Rice faculty to build nationally recognized undergraduate laboratories, applying her own four years of industry work experience at the Shell Development Company. In designing the laboratories, she incorporated technical expertise and skills, as well as communication and teamwork. To emphasize these elements, she uses a variety of assignments, such as technical posters, research papers, and technical memos. A significant part of the writing component in the bioengineering curriculum comes from her instruction. Laboratory elements have been designed with ABET criteria to promote student initiative and experimental design. Saterbak implements current thinking in engineering and laboratory education, and many laboratories present open-ended challenges, which require students to design their own experiments.

Saterbak is currently the ASEE Biomedical Engineering Division (BED) Program Chair for the 2007 Annual Conference. She is a frequent presenter of educational materials at ASEE and BMES. Saterbak is an active member on the Rice Laboratory Coordinators Working Group. She developed laboratory objectives and assessment tools for courses in the schools of engineering and natural sciences, and served the department as associate chair (2003-2005). She has also been instrumental in curriculum changes, and has developed templates to evaluate the bioengineering undergraduate program, which are in line with activities of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).

The Robert G. Quinn Award, endowed by Agilent Technologies, recognizes outstanding contributions in providing and promoting excellence in experimentation and laboratory instruction.

William Elgin Wickenden Award

The William Elgin Wickenden Award for 2007 was presented to Robert J. Roselli and Sean P. Brophy in recognition of their paper, “Effectiveness in Challenge-Based Instruction in Biomechanics,” which was published in the October 2006 issue of the Journal of Engineering Education.

Robert J. Roselli is a professor of biomedical engineering and chemical engineering at Vanderbilt University. He also serves as director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Biomedical Engineering, VaNTH Domain Leader in Biotransport, and active contributor to the VaNTH Biomechanics Domain. Roselli has developed graduate and undergraduate courses in biomechanics and biotransport at Vanderbilt University. He is a founding member of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in biotransport and biomechanics, and serves as the Director of Graduate Studies. Roselli is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering and a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society. He served as Education Director and is currently the Biotransport Domain Leader for the Vanderbilt-Northwestern-Texas-Harvard-MIT Engineering Research Center for Bioengineering Technologies.

Sean P. Brophy is assistant professor of engineering education at Purdue University. He leads the Learning Sciences group for the VaNTH Engineering Research Center in Bioengineering Educational Technologies. Brophy is a learning scientist and engineer; his research focuses on the development of learners’ ability to solve complex problems in engineering, science and mathematics contexts. Recently he has been exploring the interaction between innovation skills and rich content knowledge as an important component of developing adaptive expertise. This research aligns with his work to develop effective learning environments using challenge based instruction.

The William Elgin Wickenden Award, sponsored by the Journal of Engineering Education editorial review board, recognizes the author of the best paper published in ASEE’s Journal of Engineering Education (JEE), the scholarly research journal for the Society. JEE’s editorial review board selects the best paper published during the previous January to October publication cycle.

ASEE Award Winners:
http://www.asee.org/activities/awards/

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This award recognizes high-quality papers that are presented at the ASEE Annual Conference. Papers awarded are from those that were presented at the Annual Conference the previous year. Six outstanding conference papers are selected: one from each of the five ASEE Professional Interest Councils (PICs) and one overall conference paper. The award consists of $1,000 for each PIC paper and $3,000 for the best conference paper.

Best Paper - PIC I

2007-2036: TEACHING THE BOK - CHALLENGES FOR FACULTY AND PROGRAMS
Mark Evans
Decker Hains
Stephen Ressler

Best Paper - PIC II

2007-919: STEM-RELATED K-12 OUTREACH THROUGH HIGH-ALTITUDE BALLOON PROGRAM COLLABORATIONS
Claude Kansaku
Linda Kehr
Catherine Lanier

Best Paper - PIC III

2007-2476: RETAINING FRESHMAN ENGINEERING STUDENTS THROUGH PARTICIPATION IN A FIRST-YEAR LEARNING COMMUNITY: WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN'T
Janet Meyer
Nancy Lamm
Joshua Smith

Best Paper - PIC IV

2007-1106: LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF A MIDDLE SCHOOL ENGINEERING OUTREACH PROGRAM FOR GIRLS: A CONTROLLED STUDY
Jeanne Hubelbank
Chrysanthe Demetry
Shelley Errington Nicholson
Stephanie Blaisdell
Paula Quinn
Elissa Rosenthal
Suzanne Sontgerath

Best Paper - PIC V

2007-1283: ADDRESSING THE CAREER DEVELOPMENT NEEDS OF EXPERIENCED PROJECT PROFESSIONALS
James Plemmons
Ray Jones

Best Overall Paper

2007-919: STEM-RELATED K-12 OUTREACH THROUGH HIGH-ALTITUDE BALLOON PROGRAM COLLABORATIONS
Claude Kansaku
Linda Kehr
Catherine Lanier

Search Conference Proceedings:
http://www.asee.org/conferences/

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