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Prof. Dr. Diana Chen
University of San Diego

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0 Biomimicry
0 Engineering Design
0 Social Justice
0 Sustainability
0 sociotechnical engineering

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Preprint content
Published: 16 July 2021
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ACS Style

Melissa Gibbons; Diana Chen. Incorporating Bio-Inspired Sutures Into Curved Structures: Using Finite Element Models to Optimize the Mechanical Response Under Quasi-Static Three-Point Bending. 2021, 1 .

AMA Style

Melissa Gibbons, Diana Chen. Incorporating Bio-Inspired Sutures Into Curved Structures: Using Finite Element Models to Optimize the Mechanical Response Under Quasi-Static Three-Point Bending. . 2021; ():1.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Melissa Gibbons; Diana Chen. 2021. "Incorporating Bio-Inspired Sutures Into Curved Structures: Using Finite Element Models to Optimize the Mechanical Response Under Quasi-Static Three-Point Bending." , no. : 1.

Journal article
Published: 26 June 2021 in Sustainability
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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.

ACS Style

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 Style

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 (13):7188.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Laura 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.

Journal article
Published: 03 November 2020 in Sustainability
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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.

ACS Style

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 Style

Gordon 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 Style

Gordon 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.

Journal article
Published: 28 October 2020 in Education Sciences
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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.

ACS Style

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 Style

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 (11):304.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Laura 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.

Conference paper
Published: 10 September 2020 in 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
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Engineering sciences, commonly found in the second year of engineering programs, are the technical courses that are considered some of the most important background for an engineering student. Yet, these courses have become impenetrable from changes in content and pedagogy and are abstracted from any human or societal context. In this work-in-progress paper, we describe our efforts in bringing human context to Statics at two teaching-focused institutions. We purposefully integrate context into the course by scaffolding students to see Statics as all around them and relevant to their own lives. Our efforts can be divided into four main categories, in increasing levels of student difficulty: concepts in context, problem-solving in context, decision-making in context, and make-your-own context. In the first level, new course material is introduced by relating it to phenomena experienced in daily life to help students grasp challenging concepts. Students are shown ways in which Statics surround them in their daily lives through real-life, everyday examples used to explain technical concepts in class (e.g., learning to paddleboard by analyzing moments). In the second level, students practice Statics problem-solving in context by examining a real-world scenario through a Statics analysis. These context problems include reflection questions that ask students to consider the meaning and impacts of their numerical solution. In addition to these levels of contextualization that are easier to implement, we also describe in this paper how we have created entire projects around decision-making in context, and how we have led students to draw their own connections between Statics concepts and how they might use them in their own lives. Our goal is to demonstrate Statics concepts as more than “how things are engineered” (i.e., training future engineers to understand Statics in engineered objects) by helping students appreciate and see the relevance of Statics in every aspect of their lives. This paper presents our process and select examples for other instructors to use and build on. Lastly, we offer our reflections on the process and our tips on how to conceptualize context around Statics to help interested instructors generate their own ideas.

ACS Style

Diana A. Chen; Sarah Wodin-Schwartz. Contextualizing Statics: Our Process and Examples. 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings 2020, 1 .

AMA Style

Diana A. Chen, Sarah Wodin-Schwartz. Contextualizing Statics: Our Process and Examples. 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings. 2020; ():1.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Diana A. Chen; Sarah Wodin-Schwartz. 2020. "Contextualizing Statics: Our Process and Examples." 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings , no. : 1.

Conference paper
Published: 10 September 2020 in 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
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How could we talk about race in an engineering classroom? What about other socially constructed identities? Although diversity and inclusion have become important topics discussed and researched within engineering education, these are not easy concepts for most engineering educators to discuss with students in the classroom. In this paper, we describe examples of class activities that we have used in two engineering courses to help students learn about privilege, its relationship to different –isms, such as racism, sexism, classism, ableism, and heterosexism, and the role engineering plays/can play in maintaining or dismantling that privilege. Specifically, we describe activities in a required User Centered Design course for first or second year students, and an Engineering and Social Justice course required for third year students in General Engineering and open as an elective to other engineering majors. As engineering professors, we also describe our own positionality as the instructors. We hope that these examples will be helpful to others interested in integrating such content into their courses.

ACS Style

Joel Alejandro Mejia; Diana A. Chen; Odesma Onika Dalrymple; Susan M Lord. Revealing the Invisible: Conversations about -Isms and Power Relations in Engineering Courses. 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings 2020, 1 .

AMA Style

Joel Alejandro Mejia, Diana A. Chen, Odesma Onika Dalrymple, Susan M Lord. Revealing the Invisible: Conversations about -Isms and Power Relations in Engineering Courses. 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings. 2020; ():1.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Joel Alejandro Mejia; Diana A. Chen; Odesma Onika Dalrymple; Susan M Lord. 2020. "Revealing the Invisible: Conversations about -Isms and Power Relations in Engineering Courses." 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings , no. : 1.

Conference paper
Published: 10 September 2020 in 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
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Energy is a foundational topic across engineering disciplines; however, energy concepts are typically introduced in a disjointed fashion across multiple courses. Students often have difficulty making connections across disciplines that leverage their own personal funds of knowledge. For example, many students often fail to connect their personal experience with technology (e.g. home appliances) with the engineering concepts (e.g. 1st law of thermodynamics) introduced in class. We are exploring a reconceived approach for introducing students to these important concepts. The authors, with expertise in four different engineering disciplines, recognize that many discourses in engineering exist in tension with each other. The context in which we teach energy is too often narrowly defined and framed by both hegemonic disciplinary literacies (i.e., mechanical engineers tend to focus heavily on steam tables) and dominant cultural perspectives (i.e., White, male, colonial, and heteronormative). Our objective is to redefine the teaching and learning of energy in engineering to recognize the broad diversity that exists within the world around energy. This paper, submitted as a work in progress, describes our vision for a new course that brings together energy concepts from traditional middle year courses such as thermodynamics and circuits. We propose to use culturally sustaining pedagogies (CSPs) to provide all students with a stronger foundation and a broader perspective. CSPs seek to value and cultivate the cultural and social pluralism that creates a democratic educational experience and have been shown to increase student engagement and improve student outcomes in K-12 education. We hypothesize that the use of CSPs will help with breaking down the false dichotomy of engineering problems as strictly “social” or “technical.” In this paper, we briefly review approaches taken to teach energy in engineering. We then examine CSPs and make the case for how they might be used within engineering. We discuss our preliminary ideas for the course itself. The goal of this paper is to stimulate discussion within the ASEE community to improve course effectiveness in enhancing student learning. This project is part of a larger overall effort at [University] to integrate social justice themes across the curriculum of a new general engineering department. This paper will present our progress towards instantiating in the classroom the broader vision laid out for our program.

ACS Style

Gordon D. Hoople; Joel Alejandro Mejia; Diana A. Chen; Susan M. Lord. Reimagining Energy: Deconstructing Traditional Engineering Silos Using Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies. 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings 2020, 1 .

AMA Style

Gordon D. Hoople, Joel Alejandro Mejia, Diana A. Chen, Susan M. Lord. Reimagining Energy: Deconstructing Traditional Engineering Silos Using Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies. 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings. 2020; ():1.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Gordon D. Hoople; Joel Alejandro Mejia; Diana A. Chen; Susan M. Lord. 2020. "Reimagining Energy: Deconstructing Traditional Engineering Silos Using Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies." 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings , no. : 1.

Conference paper
Published: 10 September 2020 in 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
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This work-in-progress paper describes a new initiative at the Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering to help our students integrate, and sometimes reconcile, their personal values with their engineering identity. In this paper, we describe how we are collaborating with the Office for Mission and Ministry on our campus to use the language of vocation in an engineering context to help our students develop a critical awareness about the choices they will make upon graduation. We present a brief introduction to the literature on vocation and reflection in higher education, discuss our approach to teaching this material in our first-year User-Centered Design course, and examine the impact of the activity on students through preliminary analysis of survey data. We find that students value discussion of these topics, but more work needs to be done to connect the concepts of vocation and engineering.

ACS Style

Diana A. Chen; Mark R. Peters; Gordon D. Hoople; Joel Alejandro Mejia; Susan M. Lord. Vocation In the Engineering Curriculum: Challenging Students to Recognize Their Values. 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings 2020, 1 .

AMA Style

Diana A. Chen, Mark R. Peters, Gordon D. Hoople, Joel Alejandro Mejia, Susan M. Lord. Vocation In the Engineering Curriculum: Challenging Students to Recognize Their Values. 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings. 2020; ():1.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Diana A. Chen; Mark R. Peters; Gordon D. Hoople; Joel Alejandro Mejia; Susan M. Lord. 2020. "Vocation In the Engineering Curriculum: Challenging Students to Recognize Their Values." 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings , no. : 1.

Conference paper
Published: 10 September 2020 in 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
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This NSF project focuses on the development of a new, required energy course that considers ways to best include, represent, and honor students from all backgrounds using a collection of teaching practices known as culturally sustaining pedagogies (CSPs). It is sponsored through the Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Education and Human Resources (IUSE: EHR) program. Energy is a modern and foundational concept across engineering disciplines, but it is typically introduced to students in notoriously disengaging Thermodynamics courses. Many of these courses have roots in the Industrial Revolution and are characterized by particularly ethnocentric (White), masculine, and colonial knowledge. CSPs have been used successfully in K-12 settings, yielding particular benefits for traditionally underserved students, but have yet to be explored in undergraduate engineering. CSPs encourage students to connect their lived experiences to course topics, broaden what is accepted as engineering knowledge, and help individuals acknowledge the differing values and perspectives of others. This research seeks to (1) identify energy examples outside of those traditionally used in thermodynamics; (2) develop and teach a course that integrates these non-traditional examples using CSPs; and (3) deepen educators understanding of how CSPs impact student learning, mindsets, and attitudes. These materials are being disseminated so that other faculty may use CSPs to engage their students. An overarching goal of this work is promoting inclusion within engineering to support broader participation and thus increased diversity. CSPs may be a key tool in changing the dominant discourse of engineering education, improving the experience for those students already here and making it more welcoming to those who are not. In the first year of this project, the PIs are focused on identifying non-canonical examples of energy that will form the basis of the new class. This poster and associated paper will report on the new examples of energy identified by the PIs.

ACS Style

Gordon D. Hoople; Joel Alejandro Mejia; Diana A. Chen; Susan M. Lord. Board 66: Reimagining Energy Year 1: Identifying Noncanonical Examples of Energy in Engineering. 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings 2020, 1 .

AMA Style

Gordon D. Hoople, Joel Alejandro Mejia, Diana A. Chen, Susan M. Lord. Board 66: Reimagining Energy Year 1: Identifying Noncanonical Examples of Energy in Engineering. 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings. 2020; ():1.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Gordon D. Hoople; Joel Alejandro Mejia; Diana A. Chen; Susan M. Lord. 2020. "Board 66: Reimagining Energy Year 1: Identifying Noncanonical Examples of Energy in Engineering." 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings , no. : 1.

Conference paper
Published: 08 September 2020 in 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings
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Public opinion about energy issues has created an ideological divide between renewable and non-renewable energy sources. In engineering education, energy concepts are sometimes divided and analyzed by disciplinary boundary lines. In an effort to explore how to better teach energy concepts to our students, we sought to first understand how students conceptualize energy. This paper outlines a survey that was administered to students a school of engineering at a private liberal arts university to gain insight into students' understanding of energy concepts and issues (n=82). The survey consisted of questions to gauge students' interests in energy, existing technical understanding, and energy tendencies. The data collected from the survey was used to create and tailor a new energy class to the students so the concepts can be built around student interest and embodied knowledge.

ACS Style

Madeline Nelson; Gordon D. Hoople; Joel Alejandro Mejia; Diana Chen; Susan M. Lord. What is Energy? Examining Engineering Students’ Conceptions of Energy. 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings 2020, 1 .

AMA Style

Madeline Nelson, Gordon D. Hoople, Joel Alejandro Mejia, Diana Chen, Susan M. Lord. What is Energy? Examining Engineering Students’ Conceptions of Energy. 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings. 2020; ():1.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Madeline Nelson; Gordon D. Hoople; Joel Alejandro Mejia; Diana Chen; Susan M. Lord. 2020. "What is Energy? Examining Engineering Students’ Conceptions of Energy." 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings , no. : 1.

Conference paper
Published: 08 September 2020 in 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings
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The concept of vocation is sometimes ignored by engineering students given that its connotation is traditionally related to religious endeavors. However, examining vocation can provide a frame of reference for individuals that seek to live their authentic selves while engaging in a particular trade or profession, including those outside of religious settings. Vocational decisions involve not only thinking about a career, but also about the community, discourses, values, and relationships that encompass the quest for meaning and purpose in life. Thus, the integration of vocational education in engineering curricula can be very transformative for students as it encourages them to reflect on, and even reconcile, their values and their engineering identity. Research indicates that certain aspects of engineering education curricula, such as the depoliticization of engineering and the myth of meritocracy (Cech 2013), can create conflicting interpretations of what it means to be an engineer and even promote the culture of disengagement (Cech, 2014). In an effort to understand how students reflect on and make sense of the complexities of living their authentic selves while embodying an engineering identity, we implemented an activity where we asked undergraduate students, typically in their second or third semester, to sort "values cards" and reflect on how those selected values aligned with how they imagined themselves as engineers. Some of the "values cards" included descriptors such as "authority", "family", "wealth", "mastery" and "contribution" among others. The students were provided with 83 values and asked to sort these cards into three different piles: very important to me, somewhat important to me, and not important to me. After the first sorting round, the students were asked to eliminate the "not important to me" pile and sort the remaining cards into 5 new piles based on value similarities. Finally, the students were required to select one value from each of those 5 piles that represented their core values. After the activity, the students completed a handout where they wrote their selected values and provided context to those values by writing actionable practices that described how they enacted those values as they related to their life and engineering. This paper presents the values that engineering students may deem important to their vocations. In addition, we sought to describe how the values system of engineering students may be reflective of the Discourses of engineering – ways of recognizing and being recognized as a member of a group by enacting distinctive ways of valuing, feeling, or believing among others. We analyzed students’ responses using critical discourse analysis to investigate how language, as a form of social practice, is used among engineering students to conceptualize purpose. We argue that language in text used by students is descriptive of how they create meaning of different situations, and that those situations are reflective of the larger dominant discourse created by sociocultural practices in engineering. Preliminary results indicate that engineering Discourses may influence the conceptualizations of status, power, and solidarity in relationship to their values and vocations.

ACS Style

Joel Alejandro Mejia; Diana Chen; Mark A. Chapman. Engineering as a Challenging Vocation: How Students Align Personal Values to the Dominant Engineering Discourse. 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings 2020, 1 .

AMA Style

Joel Alejandro Mejia, Diana Chen, Mark A. Chapman. Engineering as a Challenging Vocation: How Students Align Personal Values to the Dominant Engineering Discourse. 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings. 2020; ():1.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Joel Alejandro Mejia; Diana Chen; Mark A. Chapman. 2020. "Engineering as a Challenging Vocation: How Students Align Personal Values to the Dominant Engineering Discourse." 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings , no. : 1.

Conference paper
Published: 08 September 2020 in 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings
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This NSF project focuses on the development of a new, required energy course that considers ways to best include, represent, and honor students from all backgrounds using a collection of pedagogical approaches known as culturally sustaining pedagogies (CSPs). It is sponsored by the Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Education and Human Resources (IUSE: EHR) program. Energy is a modern and foundational concept across engineering disciplines, but it is typically introduced to students in notoriously disengaging Thermodynamics courses. Many of these courses have roots in the Industrial Revolution and are characterized by particularly ethnocentric (White), masculine, and colonial knowledge. CSPs have been used successfully in K-12 settings, yielding particular benefits for traditionally underserved students, but have yet to be explored in undergraduate engineering. CSPs encourage students to connect their lived experiences to course topics, broaden conceptualizations of energy, and help individuals acknowledge the differing values and perspectives of others. This research seeks to (1) identify energy examples outside of those traditionally used in thermodynamics; (2) develop and teach a course that integrates these non-traditional examples using CSPs; and (3) deepen educators understanding of how CSPs impact student learning, mindsets, and attitudes. These materials are being disseminated so that other faculty may use CSPs to engage their students. An overarching goal of this work is to promote inclusion within engineering to support broader participation and thus increase diversity. CSPs may be a key tool in changing the dominant discourse of engineering education, improving the experience for those students already here and making it more welcoming to those who are not. In the second year of this project, the PIs are focused on developing course materials (e.g. lesson plans, learning outcomes) for the new class based on what was learned in Year One about CSPs. This poster and associated paper will report on the PIs’ progress in course development.

ACS Style

Gordon D. Hoople; Joel Alejandro Mejia; Diana Chen; Susan M. Lord. Reimagining Energy Year 2: Integrating CSPs into Course Development. 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings 2020, 1 .

AMA Style

Gordon D. Hoople, Joel Alejandro Mejia, Diana Chen, Susan M. Lord. Reimagining Energy Year 2: Integrating CSPs into Course Development. 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings. 2020; ():1.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Gordon D. Hoople; Joel Alejandro Mejia; Diana Chen; Susan M. Lord. 2020. "Reimagining Energy Year 2: Integrating CSPs into Course Development." 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings , no. : 1.

Journal article
Published: 23 July 2020 in Sustainability
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This paper describes the development and implementation of a classroom experience involving problem-based and project-based learning with community engagement in an engineering design context. While most User-Centered Design courses ask students to critically analyze and synthesize user needs, particularly of users who they see as “not like them”, our version is unique in having students wrestle with concepts of power, privilege, and oppression alongside developing prototypes that address sociotechnical aspects of engineering design that are rarely discussed in engineering courses. The course project described in this paper was developed to integrate issues of homelessness with engineering design. To achieve this goal, we partnered with a local non-profit organization that provides access to safe, mobile showers for our unhoused neighbors. Considering the context and needs of people who experience homelessness, students built solar water heater prototypes that integrated with the mobile shower units of our partners. Our goal with this course is to demonstrate to students that technical solutions are often insufficient for solving sociotechnical problems. In this case, the partnership with the non-profit organization was critical to conveying to students that engineering alone cannot solve homelessness.

ACS Style

Diana Chen; Mark Chapman; Joel Mejia. Balancing Complex Social and Technical Aspects of Design: Exposing Engineering Students to Homelessness Issues. Sustainability 2020, 12, 5917 .

AMA Style

Diana Chen, Mark Chapman, Joel Mejia. Balancing Complex Social and Technical Aspects of Design: Exposing Engineering Students to Homelessness Issues. Sustainability. 2020; 12 (15):5917.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Diana Chen; Mark Chapman; Joel Mejia. 2020. "Balancing Complex Social and Technical Aspects of Design: Exposing Engineering Students to Homelessness Issues." Sustainability 12, no. 15: 5917.

Journal article
Published: 27 January 2020 in International Journal of Engineering Pedagogy (iJEP)
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In this study we investigate how faculty and students think about engineering us-ing a technique new to engineering education: card sorting. In card sorting partic-ipants sort stimuli (cards) into groups, in the process revealing how they catego-rize information. Here we examine how both engineering faculty (n=23) and first-year undergraduate students (n=62) categorize engineering scenarios. We found engineering faculty sort based on cross-disciplinary engineering activities rather than engineering disciplines. This is a surprising result as our educational frameworks are based around disciplines, and yet they are not the primary way in which faculty think. First-year students, on the other hand, showed little consen-sus on how to sort the scenarios. As a part of this paper we unveil an online card sorting platform Collection and Analysis of Research Data for Sorting (CARDS). CARDS allows researchers to create card sorting tasks, distribute them to participants for remote data collection, and analyze quantitative results.

ACS Style

Diana A. Chen; Gordon D. Hoople; Nico Ledwith; Eric Burlingame; Seth D. Bush; Gregory E. Scott. Exploring Faculty and Student Frameworks for Engineering Knowledge Using an Online Card Sorting Platform. International Journal of Engineering Pedagogy (iJEP) 2020, 10, 62 -81.

AMA Style

Diana A. Chen, Gordon D. Hoople, Nico Ledwith, Eric Burlingame, Seth D. Bush, Gregory E. Scott. Exploring Faculty and Student Frameworks for Engineering Knowledge Using an Online Card Sorting Platform. International Journal of Engineering Pedagogy (iJEP). 2020; 10 (1):62-81.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Diana A. Chen; Gordon D. Hoople; Nico Ledwith; Eric Burlingame; Seth D. Bush; Gregory E. Scott. 2020. "Exploring Faculty and Student Frameworks for Engineering Knowledge Using an Online Card Sorting Platform." International Journal of Engineering Pedagogy (iJEP) 10, no. 1: 62-81.

Articles
Published: 02 October 2019 in Digital Creativity
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The lack of diversity in engineering and perpetuation of inequities through engineering designs have motivated the rise of new curricula centred on the integration of traditional technical content with social aspects of technology. However, the ‘revolutionizing’ of curricula has primarily been spearheaded by junior faculty, women and faculty of colour. This article uses an autoethnographic approach to explore the development of social justice-oriented curricula within engineering from the perspectives of junior women and faculty of colour. Drawing on feminist and critical race theory, we discuss how power dynamics within the school, university and engineering more broadly have shaped the development and teaching of justice-oriented engineering. Through the lens of our experiences, we show that, despite the support from some institutional allies and administrators, stereotypes, hegemonic norms and microaggressions can undermine efforts for social and structural change in engineering education, even as such changes are supported and promoted by the institution.

ACS Style

Diana A. Chen; Joel Alejandro Mejia; Samantha Breslin. Navigating equity work in engineering: contradicting messages encountered by minority faculty. Digital Creativity 2019, 30, 329 -344.

AMA Style

Diana A. Chen, Joel Alejandro Mejia, Samantha Breslin. Navigating equity work in engineering: contradicting messages encountered by minority faculty. Digital Creativity. 2019; 30 (4):329-344.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Diana A. Chen; Joel Alejandro Mejia; Samantha Breslin. 2019. "Navigating equity work in engineering: contradicting messages encountered by minority faculty." Digital Creativity 30, no. 4: 329-344.

Journal article
Published: 13 November 2018 in Designs
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In our current building design philosophy, structural design is based on static predictions of the loads a building will need to withstand and the services it will need to provide. However, one study found that 60% of all buildings are demolished due to obsolescence. To combat our obsolescence-demolition culture, we turn to Nature for lessons about adaptable structural design. In this paper, we investigate the structural adaptability of the T. terebra spiraled turret shell through finite element modeling and parametric studies. The shell is able to change its structure over time to meet changing performance demands—a feat of adaptability that could transform our current infrastructure design. Modeling the shell’s growth process is an early and simple attempt at characterizing adaptability. As the mollusk deposits material overtime, its shell wall thickness changes, and its number of whorls increases. We designed parametric studies around these two modes of growth and investigated their effect on structural integrity and living convenience for the mollusk. By drawing parallels between the shell structure and human structures, we demonstrate connections between engineering challenges and Nature’s solutions. We encourage readers to consider biomimicry as a source of inspiration for their own quantitative studies for a more sustainable world.

ACS Style

Diana A. Chen; Brandon E. Ross; Leidy E. Klotz. Parametric Analysis of a Spiraled Shell: Learning from Nature’s Adaptable Structures. Designs 2018, 2, 46 .

AMA Style

Diana A. Chen, Brandon E. Ross, Leidy E. Klotz. Parametric Analysis of a Spiraled Shell: Learning from Nature’s Adaptable Structures. Designs. 2018; 2 (4):46.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Diana A. Chen; Brandon E. Ross; Leidy E. Klotz. 2018. "Parametric Analysis of a Spiraled Shell: Learning from Nature’s Adaptable Structures." Designs 2, no. 4: 46.

Conference paper
Published: 01 November 2018 in 2018 World Engineering Education Forum - Global Engineering Deans Council (WEEF-GEDC)
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A curriculum has been designed to help students become Changemaking Engineers with a sense of social responsibility and social justice. Courses include: (1) a User-Centered Design (UCD) course for first year students, (2) a Circuits course for second year students, (3) an Engineering and Social Justice course for third year students, and (4) an upper division elective on Engineering Peace. Students in UCD learn methods for engineering innovation that meet the needs of users in the local community. In Circuits, students explore how electrical circuits are related to conflict minerals, recycling, and design considerations for responsible social innovation. In Engineering and Social Justice, students consider historical and contemporary contexts to analyze impacts of engineering designs, systems, processes, and products. In Engineering Peace, students from the School of Engineering and the School of Peace Studies come together to design a drone with a positive impact on society and recognize the value of perspectives from other disciplines. This paper details the methods and highlights the successes and challenges experienced as these different but coordinated course offerings were developed.

ACS Style

S. M. Lord; J. A. Mejia; G. Hoople; D. Chen; O. Dalrymple; E. Reddy; B. Przestrzelski; A. Choi-Fitzpatrick. Creative Curricula for Changemaking Engineers. 2018 World Engineering Education Forum - Global Engineering Deans Council (WEEF-GEDC) 2018, 1 -5.

AMA Style

S. M. Lord, J. A. Mejia, G. Hoople, D. Chen, O. Dalrymple, E. Reddy, B. Przestrzelski, A. Choi-Fitzpatrick. Creative Curricula for Changemaking Engineers. 2018 World Engineering Education Forum - Global Engineering Deans Council (WEEF-GEDC). 2018; ():1-5.

Chicago/Turabian Style

S. M. Lord; J. A. Mejia; G. Hoople; D. Chen; O. Dalrymple; E. Reddy; B. Przestrzelski; A. Choi-Fitzpatrick. 2018. "Creative Curricula for Changemaking Engineers." 2018 World Engineering Education Forum - Global Engineering Deans Council (WEEF-GEDC) , no. : 1-5.

Conference paper
Published: 09 May 2018 in 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
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ACS Style

Diana Chen; Gordon Hoople. Contextualizing a New General Engineering Curriculum in the Liberal Arts. 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings 2018, 1 .

AMA Style

Diana Chen, Gordon Hoople. Contextualizing a New General Engineering Curriculum in the Liberal Arts. 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings. 2018; ():1.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Diana Chen; Gordon Hoople. 2018. "Contextualizing a New General Engineering Curriculum in the Liberal Arts." 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings , no. : 1.

Journal article
Published: 01 January 2016 in Procedia Engineering
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Obsolescence is a widespread “hazard” to the built environment, which often leads to the demolition of buildings that still have years of remaining service life. This paper identifies eleven design-based “enablers” (strategies) for creating adaptable buildings that are resistant to obsolescence. The perceived effectiveness of the enablers was studied through a survey of design professionals. Statistical analyses of the survey results were conducted to compare responses between different groups of design professionals. While the results are considered preliminary, they do suggest that some of the enablers are viewed as being significantly more effective than the others. Further work in quantitative modeling of building adaptability is to follow, as we hope to promote sustainability by empowering designers with tools that can best enable the adaptive reuse of buildings.

ACS Style

Brandon E. Ross; Diana Chen; Sheila Conejos; Amin Khademi. Enabling Adaptable Buildings: Results of a Preliminary Expert Survey. Procedia Engineering 2016, 145, 420 -427.

AMA Style

Brandon E. Ross, Diana Chen, Sheila Conejos, Amin Khademi. Enabling Adaptable Buildings: Results of a Preliminary Expert Survey. Procedia Engineering. 2016; 145 ():420-427.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Brandon E. Ross; Diana Chen; Sheila Conejos; Amin Khademi. 2016. "Enabling Adaptable Buildings: Results of a Preliminary Expert Survey." Procedia Engineering 145, no. : 420-427.

Journal article
Published: 01 January 2016 in Procedia Engineering
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Biomimicry, used increasingly to make engineering advances, remains underutilized on the scale of the built environment. Drawing from a systems engineering foundation, this research characterizes biomimetic design by the natural principle form follows function. By identifying and manipulating the mathematical functions that govern the resulting natural form, this research explores how built structures can best capture the fundamental functions of an organism. Studying an organism's form, processes, and habitat can lead to the development of structures that are able to adapt to changing trends and standards over time. An example is provided from the authors’ current project, which involves structurally modeling the Turritella terebra seashell and conducting parametric studies to determine which of its characteristics allow for its adaptability. These adaptability parameters can be mapped to analogous characteristics in structural design.

ACS Style

Diana A. Chen; Leidy E. Klotz; Brandon E. Ross. Mathematically Characterizing Natural Systems for Adaptable, Biomimetic Design. Procedia Engineering 2016, 145, 497 -503.

AMA Style

Diana A. Chen, Leidy E. Klotz, Brandon E. Ross. Mathematically Characterizing Natural Systems for Adaptable, Biomimetic Design. Procedia Engineering. 2016; 145 ():497-503.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Diana A. Chen; Leidy E. Klotz; Brandon E. Ross. 2016. "Mathematically Characterizing Natural Systems for Adaptable, Biomimetic Design." Procedia Engineering 145, no. : 497-503.