Integrating Community-Engaged Research and Energy Justice in Design Pedagogy: Reflections on a First-Year Undergraduate Design Course
- Conference
- Location
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Portland, Oregon
- Publication Date
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June 23, 2024
- Start Date
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June 23, 2024
- End Date
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July 12, 2024
- Conference Session
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Energy Conversion, Conservation and Nuclear Engineering Division (ECCNE) Technical Session 1
- Tagged Divisions
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Energy Conversion and Conservation and Nuclear Engineering Division (ECCNE)
- Tagged Topic
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Diversity
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/47647
Paper Authors
Aditi Verma University of Michigan
Aditi Verma (she/her) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences at the University of Michigan. Aditi is broadly interested in how fission and fusion technologies specifically and energy systems broadly—and their institutional infrastructures—can be designed in more creative, participatory, and equitable ways. To this end, her research group at the University of Michigan works towards developing a more fundamental understanding of the early stages of the design process to improve design practice and pedagogy, and also improve the tools with which designers of complex sociotechnical systems work.
She was previously a Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Prior to her appointment at the Belfer Center, Aditi worked at the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, her work, endorsed and funded by policymakers from the NEA member countries, focused on bringing epistemologies from the humanities and social sciences to academic and practitioner nuclear engineering, thus broadening their epistemic core. At the NEA, Aditi also led the establishment of the Global Forum on Nuclear Education, Science, Technology, and Policy.
Aditi holds undergraduate and doctoral degrees in Nuclear Science and Engineering from MIT. Her work, authored for academic as well as policymaking audiences, has been published in Nuclear Engineering and Design, Nature, Nuclear Technology, Design Studies, Journal of Mechanical Design, Issues in Science and Technology, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and Inkstick.
Aditi enjoys hiking with her dog, reading speculative fiction, and experimenting in the kitchen.
Katie Snyder University of Michigan
Dr. Snyder is a lecturer for the Program in Technical Communication at the University of Michigan. She teaches design, ethics, and technical communication as social justice in the College of Engineering.
Abstract
The language of engineering is replete with ‘unintended consequences’ as amply illustrated across a number of examples, ranging from the mundane to grave –left-handed individuals struggle with most appliances (scissors, vacuum cleaners, can-openers); car crash fatality rates for women are higher than for men because crash-test dummies (until 2022) were modeled on male bodies; facial-recognition technologies frequently misidentify Black individuals; soap dispensers fail to operate for dark-skinned people (only recognizing light skin tones); the health effects of radiation are characterized for ‘reference man’ (170 cm tall, 20-30-year-old Caucasian male, weighing 70kg). Engineer-designers, implicitly or explicitly, assume a ‘reference man’. Most of us are not reference man, and if ever, will only be reference man for a brief period in our lives. In this way, we engineers effectively design technologies that serve but a few well and poorly serve others, if at all.
The problem becomes even thornier for complex sociotechnical systems –including most energy technologies, especially nuclear. These systems have few ‘users’ in the traditional sense (operated by a handful) but impact many – during normal operation and failure. Instead, these systems have stakeholders, or better put, ‘rightsholders’ – individuals impacted by the development and use of these systems but seldom having say in any stage of design. Breaking from this traditional approach to design that fails to incorporate rightsholders in the technology design and development process, we have developed a new course “ Socially Engaged Design of Nuclear Energy Technologies” for first-year undergraduate students at the University of Michigan. In this paper, we describe the pedagogical philosophy underlying the course and the lessons learned from its first offering in the Fall of 2023. Notably, all sections of this course operate under a design-build-test model and feature, lecture, lab, and discussion sections.
Through the course, students examine positionality, power, and language in the context of socially engaged design. Course assignments and lectures present ethics and engineering work as necessarily intertwined. For example, students learned the fundamentals of nuclear science and engineering alongside qualitative research methods and completed a community engagement workshop. Assigned readings and videos offer opportunities to reflect on user-centered design, the relationship between politics and technology, and the ethics of nuclear weapons development. Virtual reality technologies were used to learn nuclear reactor design and facilitate the community engagement experience.
Verma, A., & Snyder, K. (2024, June), Integrating Community-Engaged Research and Energy Justice in Design Pedagogy: Reflections on a First-Year Undergraduate Design Course Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/47647
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