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Motivation and Impact of Diverse Student Teams in Graduate Projects

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Conference

2022 ASEE Illinois-Indiana Section Conference

Location

Anderson, Indiana

Publication Date

April 9, 2022

Start Date

April 9, 2022

End Date

April 9, 2022

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

8

DOI

10.18260/1-2--42135

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/42135

Download Count

210

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Paper Authors

biography

Shantanu Gupta Purdue University at West Lafayette (PPI) Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-5619-7012

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Shantanu Gupta is a PhD candidate in the School of Aviation and Transportation Technology at Purdue University with Dr. Mary E. Johnson. He earned his B.E in Mechanical Engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University, India, and M.S in Aviation and Aerospace Management from Purdue University, West Lafayette. Mr. Gupta is currently working with Dr. Johnson on the PEGASAS Project 33 – Augmented Weather Information Project (AWIP) as research assistant.

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Mary E. Johnson Ph.D. Purdue University at West Lafayette (PPI) Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-6572-0979

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Mary E. Johnson is a Professor and Associate Head for Graduate Studies in the School of Aviation and Transportation Technology (SATT) at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. She earned her BS, MS and PhD in Industrial Engineering from The University of Texas at Arlington. After 5 years in aerospace manufacturing as an IE, Dr. Johnson joined the Automation & Robotics Research Institute in Fort Worth and was a program manager for applied research programs. Fourteen years later, she was an Industrial Engineering assistant professor at Texas A&M - Commerce before joining the Aviation Technology department at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana in 2007 as an Associate Professor. She is a Co-PI on the FAA Center of Excellence for general aviation research known as PEGASAS and leads the Graduate Programs in SATT. Her research interests are aviation sustainability, data driven process improvement, and aviation education.

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Jiansen Wang Purdue University

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Jiansen is a PhD student in the School of Aviation and Transportation Technology at Purdue University. He began his PhD study in Aviation and Aerospace Management at Purdue University in 2021, under the supervision of Dr. Mary E Johnson. His research focuses on optimizing airport sustainability. Jiansen completed his M.S degree in Aviation and Aerospace Management at Purdue University in 2020. During his master’s study, Jiansen earned second prize in Airport Cooperative Research Program Competition in 2020. Prior to graduate school, Jiansen completed his B.S. degree in Engineering from Civil Aviation University of China.

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Abstract

Motivation and Impact of Diverse Student Teams in Graduate Projects

In many industries, project teams are comprised of people with differing educational backgrounds, work experience, and cultural backgrounds. To better prepare students for these environments, instructors may simulate similar environments in courses through student team projects. A graduate course at YYY University on sustainability in a STEM program includes lectures, short assignments, tests, and a semester-long project. The project typically includes gap identification and problem statement, ideation, search for alternatives, representation of design alternatives, safety and risk analyses, proposed design solution, cost-benefit analyses of design, and sustainability analyses. This project is completed by student teams with the instructor as advisor. For this project, the instructor intentionally recruits teams from the class members that have similar areas of project interests, but also come from diverse education, experience, and cultural backgrounds. By advocating inclusion of diverse teams, the instructor aims to achieve a more realistic simulation of working in industry, while students bring their own perspectives from their various educational, work experience, and cultural backgrounds. In this paper, the researchers explore these two perspectives in detail. The instructor discusses the motivations behind the use of diverse teams in the class projects, and the students discuss the perceived impacts of being in diverse teams for semester-long projects. The paper includes background information on diverse teams, and sections detailing the project, project team selection, inclusion of diverse backgrounds in project teams, and the its value for graduate students.

Gupta, S., & Johnson, M. E., & Wang, J. (2022, April), Motivation and Impact of Diverse Student Teams in Graduate Projects Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Illinois-Indiana Section Conference , Anderson, Indiana. 10.18260/1-2--42135

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