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Post Doctoral Researcher
01 September 2020 - 30 August 2021
Post Doctoral Researcher
01 September 2019 - 01 September 2020
Graduate Student or Post Graduate
01 January 2016 - 01 August 2019
Laura Gelles is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Texas at Dallas studying retention of undergraduate engineering students. Born in Reno, Nevada, she received her bachelor's degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Nevada Reno, her Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of North Dakota, her Ph.D. in Engineering Education at Utah State University under the mentorship of Dr. Idalis Villanueva. At USU, she researched hidden curriculum, the mentoring relationship of graduate students within science and engineering, and the career paths and resources of domestic engineering doctoral students. She worked as a postdoc at the University of San Diego on their RED grant which strove to revolutionize engineering education by redefining the engineering canon as sociotechnical.
Engineers are increasingly called on to develop sustainable solutions to complex problems. Within engineering, however, economic and environmental aspects of sustainability are often prioritized over social ones. This paper describes how efficiency and sustainability were conceptualized and interrelated by students in a newly developed second-year undergraduate engineering course, An Integrated Approach to Energy. This course took a sociotechnical approach and emphasized modern energy concepts (e.g., renewable energy), current issues (e.g., climate change), and local and personal contexts (e.g., connecting to students’ lived experiences). Analyses of student work and semi-structured interview data were used to explore how students conceptualized sustainability and efficiency. We found that in this cohort (n = 17) students often approached sustainability through a lens of efficiency, believing that if economic and environmental resources were prioritized and optimized, sustainability would be achieved. By exploring sustainability and efficiency together, we examined how dominant discourses that privilege technical over social aspects in engineering can be replicated within an energy context.
Laura Gelles; Joel Mejia; Susan Lord; Gordon Hoople; Diana Chen. Is It All about Efficiency? Exploring Students’ Conceptualizations of Sustainability in an Introductory Energy Course. Sustainability 2021, 13, 7188 .
AMA StyleLaura Gelles, Joel Mejia, Susan Lord, Gordon Hoople, Diana Chen. Is It All about Efficiency? Exploring Students’ Conceptualizations of Sustainability in an Introductory Energy Course. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (13):7188.
Chicago/Turabian StyleLaura Gelles; Joel Mejia; Susan Lord; Gordon Hoople; Diana Chen. 2021. "Is It All about Efficiency? Exploring Students’ Conceptualizations of Sustainability in an Introductory Energy Course." Sustainability 13, no. 13: 7188.
What do engineering students in 2020 need to know about energy to be successful in the workplace and contribute to addressing society’s issues related to energy? Beginning with this question, we have designed a new course for second-year engineering students. Drawing on the interdisciplinary backgrounds of our diverse team of engineering instructors, we aimed to provide an introduction to energy for all engineering students that challenged the dominant discourse in engineering by valuing students’ lived experiences and bringing in examples situated in different cultural contexts. An Integrated Approach to Energy was offered for the first time in Spring 2020 for 18 students. In this paper, we describe the design of the course including learning objectives, content, and pedagogical approach. We assessed students’ learning using exams and the impact of the overall course using interviews. Students demonstrated achievement of the learning objectives in technical areas. In addition, interviews revealed that they learned about environmental, economic, and social aspects of engineering practice. We intend for this course to serve as a model of engineering as a sociotechnical endeavor by challenging students with scenarios that are technically demanding and require critical thinking about contextual implications.
Gordon Hoople; Diana Chen; Susan Lord; Laura Gelles; Felicity Bilow; Joel Mejia. An Integrated Approach to Energy Education in Engineering. Sustainability 2020, 12, 9145 .
AMA StyleGordon Hoople, Diana Chen, Susan Lord, Laura Gelles, Felicity Bilow, Joel Mejia. An Integrated Approach to Energy Education in Engineering. Sustainability. 2020; 12 (21):9145.
Chicago/Turabian StyleGordon Hoople; Diana Chen; Susan Lord; Laura Gelles; Felicity Bilow; Joel Mejia. 2020. "An Integrated Approach to Energy Education in Engineering." Sustainability 12, no. 21: 9145.
The global pandemic of COVID-19 brought about the transition to Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) at higher education institutions across the United States, prompting both students and the faculty to rapidly adjust to a different modality of teaching and learning. Other crises have induced disruptions to academic continuity (e.g., earthquakes, hurricanes), but not to the same extent as COVID-19, which has affected universities on a global scale. In this paper, we describe a qualitative case study where we interviewed 11 second-year Integrated Engineering students during the Spring 2020 semester to explore how they adapted to the transition to remote learning. Our results revealed several student challenges, how they used self-discipline strategies to overcome them, and how the faculty supported students in the classroom through a compassionate and flexible pedagogy. Faculty members showed compassion and flexibility by adjusting the curriculum and assessment and effectively communicating with students. This was especially important for the women participants in this study, who more frequently expressed utilizing pass/fail grading and the personal and gendered challenges they faced due to the pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis, we found that a key element for supporting students’ well-being and success is the faculty members communicating care and incorporating flexibility into their courses.
Laura A. Gelles; Susan M. Lord; Gordon D. Hoople; Diana A. Chen; Joel Alejandro Mejia. Compassionate Flexibility and Self-Discipline: Student Adaptation to Emergency Remote Teaching in an Integrated Engineering Energy Course during COVID-19. Education Sciences 2020, 10, 304 .
AMA StyleLaura A. Gelles, Susan M. Lord, Gordon D. Hoople, Diana A. Chen, Joel Alejandro Mejia. Compassionate Flexibility and Self-Discipline: Student Adaptation to Emergency Remote Teaching in an Integrated Engineering Energy Course during COVID-19. Education Sciences. 2020; 10 (11):304.
Chicago/Turabian StyleLaura A. Gelles; Susan M. Lord; Gordon D. Hoople; Diana A. Chen; Joel Alejandro Mejia. 2020. "Compassionate Flexibility and Self-Discipline: Student Adaptation to Emergency Remote Teaching in an Integrated Engineering Energy Course during COVID-19." Education Sciences 10, no. 11: 304.