visit author page

Jeff Plumblee, PhD, MBA is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in online service-learning at Clemson University. Plumblee founded the award winning Clemson Engineers for Developing Countries (CEDC) in 2009 while pursuing a doctorate in civil engineering. He has helped to grow the organization to 100+ students per semester, including 2-5 interns living in Haiti year-round. The program has overseen in excess of $2 million in sustainable infrastructure and economic development projects in Haiti. He is currently exploring ways to offer similar opportunities to a wider audience, including bringing the CEDC model into a domestic context, leveraging technology to virtually link students with service-learning opportunities and resources throughout the world, and starting a design challenge for high school students to address the needs of the less fortunate.

visit author page

visit author page

DR. PENELOPE BRUNNER is the Director of Assessment and Planning for Clemson’s College of Engineering. In this role, she works with academic departments and administrative offices on assessment reporting and strategic planning alignments.

Prior to joining Clemson, Dr. Brunner was an Associate Vice President at the College of Charleston. As an associate professor within the University of North Carolina system, she taught courses in Management and Management Information Systems. Her national and international consultancies involve working with a variety of accreditation agencies including Middle States, Western Association, AACSB, and NCATE.

A native Oklahoman, Dr. Brunner holds MA, MBA, and EdD degrees from the University of Tulsa.

visit author page

visit author page

Dr. Karen High is the Associate Dean for undergraduate studies in the College of Engineering and Science at Clemson University. She also holds an academic appointment in the Engineering Science and Education department and joint appointments in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering department as well as the Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences department. Prior to this Dr. Karen was at Oklahoma State University where she was a professor for 24 years and served as the Director of Student Services as well as the Women in Engineering Coordinator. She received her B.S. in chemical engineering from University of Michigan in 1985 and she received her M.S. in 1988 and her Ph.D. in 1991 in chemical engineering both from Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Karen’s educational emphasis includes: critical thinking, enhancing mathematics, engineering entrepreneurship in education, communication skills, K-12 engineering education, and promoting women in engineering. Her technical work and research focuses on sustainable chemical process design, computer aided design, mixed integer nonlinear programing, and multicriteria decision making.

visit author page

visit author page

Leidy Klotz is an engineering faculty member at Clemson University, where he developed and teaches courses like the one described in this paper. He does research on decision making and education for sustainability.

visit author page

visit author page

Dr. Landis joined Clemson in June 2015 as the Thomas F. Hash ’69 Endowed Chair in Sustainable Development. Previously she was an Associate Professor at Arizona State University in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment. She began her career as an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, after having obtained her PhD in 2007 from the University of Illinois at Chicago under the supervision of Dr. Thomas L. Theis. She has developed a research program in sustainable engineering of bioproducts. Her research ranges from design of systems based on industrial ecology and byproduct synergies, life cycle and sustainability assessments of biopolymers and biofuels, and design and analysis of sustainable solutions for healthcare. Since 2007, she has lead seven federal research projects and collaborated on many more, totaling over $7M in research, with over $12M in collaborative research. At ASU, Dr. Landis continues to grow her research activities and collaborations to include multidisciplinary approaches to sustainable systems with over 60 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Landis is dedicated to sustainability engineering education and outreach; she works with local high schools, after school programs, local nonprofit organizations, and museums to integrate sustainability and engineering into K-12 and undergraduate curricula.

visit author page