George Washington University, District of Columbia
April 19, 2024
April 19, 2024
April 20, 2024
15
10.18260/1-2--45707
https://peer.asee.org/45707
126
Erica Cusi Wortham is a cultural anthropologist with an interdisciplinary practice at George Washington University that spans social science, art design and engineering. As Director of the GW Engineering’s Innovation Center | M06, she makes space for studio-based, tactile learning, community-driven innovation that centers creative problem-solving, equity and sustainability, and brings an ethnographic perspective to various AI initiatives at the school.
Dr. Zoe Szajnfarber is an Assistant Professor of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering at the George Washington University. Her research seeks to understand the fundamental dynamics of innovation in technology-intensive governmental organization, as a basis for decision-making. She received her bachelor's degree in Engineering Science from the University of Toronto. Szajnfarber conducted her graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning dual masters' degrees in Aeronautics & Astronautics and Technology Policy and a doctorate in Engineering Systems. Her dissertation focused on technology infusion at NASA and involved substantial field work at the Goddard Space Flight Center. Outside of academia, Dr. Szajnfarber has worked as a systems engineer at MDA Space Missions (Canadarm Program) and Dynacon Inc. (Microsatellites); and as a researcher at the European Space Agency (Advanced Concepts Team).
In 2021 GW Engineering was awarded funding to launch an interdisciplinary program on trustworthy AI. Designing Trustworthy AI in Systems (or DTAIS) brings together PhD students from systems engineering and computer science to co-design research and tackle the conceptual and methodological bridge building that cross disciplinary work demands. This paper focuses on how this work has been accomplished thus far, in the context of the cornerstone summer incubator, and shares some of the lessons learned. The 10-week summer incubator course, which was designed specifically for this program, brings systems engineers and computer science PhD students to make sense of “AI in the wild” (real world settings) and build short-run research prototypes together. Leveraging the interdisciplinarity of the core program faculty, the group established a fertile middle ground where a mixed method ethos, design sprint rhythm and intentional sense of community enlivens the normative student-advisor modality most PhD students experience. Along the way, the definitional challenge of what is meant exactly by trust and trustworthiness within a particular problem domain and literature is given plenty of room to form, fall apart and form again through discussion, practice, and reflection. With two iterations of the summer incubator course to glean from, we report on the difficulties of rewiring student-advisor dynamics and the positive effects of growing a diverse community. This represents a potential roadmap for how to scaffold interdisciplinarity in engineering doctoral education.
Wortham, E. C., & Szajnfarber, Z., & Pless, R., & Watkins, R. (2024, April), Building Interdisciplinarity in Engineering Doctoral Education: Insights from DTAIS Summer Incubator Paper presented at ASEE Mid-Atlantic Section Spring Conference, George Washington University, District of Columbia. 10.18260/1-2--45707
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