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Holly Matusovich named 2009 NAE / CASEE New Faculty Fellow

September 24, 2009 - Department of Engineering Education Assistant Professor Holly

Dr. Holly Matusovich

Matusovich has been chosen as a new 2009 Faculty Fellow by NAE/CASEE and will present her recent findings in engineering education during FIE 2009 to be held October 18-21, in San Antonio, Texas.

Presenting papers are:

We are Teaching Students What They Need to Know, Aren't We? : In this report, Dr. Matusovich and her co-authors examine the beliefs engineering faculty members hold about skills for student success, how these skills are taught, and if the students have these skills upon graduation.

Using interviews with faculty members as the data source and motivational theory as a lens, the results show that faculty participants believe technical, interpersonal, self-regulatory, and social responsibility skills are all important. While they are certain that students graduate with technical skills, faculty are less certain about the other skills. This is consistent with their beliefs about how skills are learned. Faculty believe students learn the necessary skills through course content, the academic learning environment, and by observing faculty modeling the desired skills. However, the faculty only report actively teaching only the technical skills through course content.

Constructive Academic Controversy - What is It? Why Use It? How to Structure It? (Special Session): Along with Dr. Karl Smith of Purdue University, Dr. Matusovich is conducting a special session on the pedagogical teaching practice "Academic Constructive Controversy". Empirical evidence supports the benefits of this cooperative learning strategy in a variety of academic settings yet it is not often used in engineering settings.

Learning to argue effectively and respectfully while considering the viewpoints of multiple stakeholders is a particularly important skill for engineers. This special session will introduce participants (current and future engineering faculty) to Academic Constructive Controversy through active participation; participants will learn by doing and will hopefully add this pedagogical practice to their teaching toolkits.

With her Master's in Materials Science from the University of Connecticut and Ph.D. in Engineering Education, Dr. Matusovich joined the Engineering Education faculty in January 2009. Her research interests include the role of motivation in learning, the development of engineering student and professional identities, student experiences learning engineering, career decision making, and learning engineering.

NAE/CASEE Faculty Fellows are selected annually from new engineering and computer science faculty to provide them with the opportunity to gain greater knowledge in engineering education and share ideas with leaders in the field of engineering education. Recipients receive a generous travel grant to FIE 2009 to present their findings.

Aditya Johri wins NSF Career Award

September 7, 2009 - Innovative work on global engineering work practices is earning Aditya Johri, assistant professor of engineering education at Virginia Tech, a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award of $406,987. Johri's National Science Foundation project is titled "Investigating Global Engineering Work Practices to Prepare 21st Century Engineers." The focus of Johri's research is the development of fundamental understanding of how engineering work has changed due to globalization and the increased use of information technology in the workplace. The CAREER award will help him make fundamental contributions to global work practice theories and translate findings into pedagogical resources to prepare 21st century engineers.

Johri received a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Delhi College of Engineering in 1998 and his Ph.D. in Learning Sciences and Technology Design from Stanford University in 2007. In the last two years he has secured approximately $1 million dollars in funding and support for his research and is currently PI on 5 NSF sponsored projects. In addition to the CAREER project, his current research initiatives include investigation of newcomer participation in open-source communities, understanding of technology in facilitating creativity in engineering design. Johri has also developed a course titled "Global Engineering Work Practices" that will support the development and testing of pedagogical resources resulting from the CAREER project. He is a past winner of the New Faculty Fellow award at the Frontiers in Education conference (sponsored by National Academy of Engineering) and the winner of the best faculty paper proposal award at the "Cognition in the Rough" workshop at the Academy of Management.

Faculty website link

Virginia Tech Engineering Alumna and head of DARPA to speak to freshman class

August 21 , 2009 – Regina Dugan, the newly appointed director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), will speak to the engineering freshmen of the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, Thursday, Aug. 27, at 7 p.m. in Burruss Hall.

Regina Dugan
Dugan earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering from Virginia Tech and a doctorate in mechanical engineering from the California Institute for Technology. She is the sole inventor on a patent for refueling satellites in orbit, and she has several additional provisional patents filed.

Dugan previously worked at DARPA from 1996 to 2000 before co-founding RedXDefense of Rockville, Md., in 2005. The company specializes in developing technologies to detect and counter explosives.
She was also the founder of Dugan Ventures. It is mainly interested in early technology opportunities, particularly technologies that span multiple disciplines, according to its website.

“The Department of Engineering Education (EngE) is overjoyed to have Dr. Dugan speak to the engineering freshmen as a part of the Student Engineers' Council First-Year Speaker Series. The purpose of this series is to expose the freshmen to cutting edge engineering work so that they can see the contributions engineers make to society and begin to see themselves in that role. The work ongoing at DARPA represents some of the most advanced engineering in the world, and Dr. Dugan is the perfect person to inspire these aspiring engineers. We are very fortunate that she is willing to take time from her busy schedule to return to Blacksburg for this event,” said Hayden Griffin, head of the EngE department.

In the Electrical Engineering Times article on Dugan’s recent DARPA appointment, it said that during her first tour at the agency, she directed a diverse $100 million portfolio of research and development programs. At that time, her primary program was aimed at developing new trace chemical sensors, and she led an interdisciplinary team of more than 100 academic, industrial, government, and military participants. Her program was successful in the creation of several revolutionary technologies and, most importantly, in their follow-on transition to multiple commercial and military products through private capitalization activities and follow-on acquisition programs.

Dugan has been widely recognized for her leadership in technology development. She has appeared on the Discovery Channel, National Public Radio, and the AAAS Science Report and her projects have been the subject of articles in The New York Times Science Times, The New York Times Circuits, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Chemical and Engineering News and Science News, among others. Dugan and her program were featured in an article entitled "Pentagon Agency Thrives on In-Your-Face Science", Science, 1999.

She has received numerous awards, including the DARPA Program Manager of the Year Award, the deFleury Medal, the most prestigious Award of the Army Engineer Regiment, for her commitment and success in leading the effort to develop a land mine detection system, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Service.
She is the co-author of Engineering Thermodynamics with JB Jones, a retired head of the ME department at Virginia Tech.

Courtesy of Lynn Nystrom

ENGE Faculty Receive Awards at 2009 Dean's Award Reception

May 5 , 2009 - During the recently held College of Engineering Dean's Award presentation held at the Inn at Virginia Tech, several Engineering Education faculty were recognized for their

Dean Benson presents Award for Outreach Excellence

to ROXIE Project Team

superior efforts.

In addition to four other outstanding College of Engineering faculty members, Maura Borrego won the award for Excellence in Research for her significant contribution to the creation of new knowledge in Engineering Education.

With his innovations in technology- based curricula, Tom Walker received the W.S. "Pete" White Award for Innovation in Engineering Education as a result of his efforts in implementing the wireless infrastructure into large classrooms so that DyKnow could be successfully incorporated into these learning environments.

The Spring 2008 ROXIE (Real Outreach eXperiences In Engineering) Project Team consisting of ENGE faculty members Mara Knott, Richard Goff, Jenny Lo, Janis Terpenny, and Chris Williams were recognized with the College Award for Outreach Excellence. This group conceived the effort and led 900 students enrolled in ENGE 1114 who worked with 87 community partners in one of the largest semester-long community service projects ever seen.

Other awards given at recent ceremonies to ENGE faculty include:

Tom Walker joins ENGE faculty members previously earning this distinction (Hayden Griffin, Janis Terpenny, and Richard Goff) as a 2009 Diggs Teaching Scholar.
Bev Watford receives the 2009 Distinguished Alumni Award from the Department of Mining and Minerals Engineering.