Salt Lake City, Utah
June 23, 2018
June 23, 2018
July 27, 2018
Humanitarian and Sustainability in a Global Engineering Context
International
18
10.18260/1-2--30706
https://peer.asee.org/30706
1274
Dr. Christina White is currently a postdoctoral engineering education research associate with Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Innovation Centre. She completed her Doctoral degree from Teachers College, Columbia University where she studied engineering education. She is the Global Chair and founding director of the National Academy of Engineering Longhorn Grand Challenges Scholars & K12 Partners Program at The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. White is also the director of an outreach program called Design, Technology, & Engineering for All Children (DTEACh) which has reached more than 1000 teachers and 85,000 students. She is the lead inventor on a patent for assistive technology. Her current research includes global competencies, innovative design-based pedagogy, humanitarian engineering, and ways to attract and retain traditionally underrepresented groups in engineering education.
Dr. Renetta Garrison Tull is Associate Vice Provost for Strategic Initiatives at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC: An Honors University in Maryland). She serves Professor of the Practice for the College of Engineering and Information Technology, and is part of the Engagement Team. She is also on detail with the University System of Maryland (USM), where she is Special Assistant to the Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, and Director of Pipeline Professional Programs for the system’s 12 academic institutions. She is the Co-PI and Founding Director for the National Science Foundation’s PROMISE: Maryland’s Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP), and Co-PI for the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) and Bridge to the Doctorate programs for the USM. Dr. Tull serves on a number of boards for women and diversity in STEM initiatives throughout the US and in Latin America. She is Vice President of Initiatives for the Latin and Caribbean Consortium of Engineering Institutions (LACCEI), and co-leads the "Women in STEM" initiatives for the organization. As a former professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, her engineering and speech science research covered topics of accessibility. Her current research in Maryland looks at intersections of social science theories, STEM equity, and physics. She was a “Cover Girl” for O’Reilly Media’s “Women in Data” issue in 2015, a finalist for the 2015 Global Engineering Deans Council/Airbus Diversity Award, Sci Chic/Medium.com 35 “Women STEM on Social Media Stars” (July 1, 2016), and 2016 winner of the Claire Felbinger Award for Diversity from ABET. She is a Tau Beta Pi “Eminent Engineer,” and can be found online @Renetta_Tull and https://renettatull.wordpress.com/.
Yevgeniya V. Zastavker, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Physics at Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering. She earned her B.S. degree in Physics from Yale University in 1995 and her Ph. D. degree in Biological Physics from MIT in 2001. Dr. Zastavker's research interests lie in the field of STEM education with specific emphasis on innovative pedagogical and curricular practices at the intersection with the issues of gender and diversity. Dr. Zastavker is currently working with Dr. Stolk on an NSF-supported project to understand students’ motivational attitudes in a variety of educational environments with the goal of improving learning opportunities for students and equipping faculty with the knowledge and skills necessary to create such opportunities. One of the founding faculty at Olin College, Dr. Zastavker has been engaged in development and implementation of project-based experiences in fields ranging from science to engineering and design to social sciences (e.g., Critical Reflective Writing; Teaching and Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering, etc.) All of these activities share a common goal of creating curricular and pedagogical structures as well as academic cultures that facilitate students' interests, motivation, and desire to persist in engineering. Through this work, outreach, and involvement in the community, Dr. Zastavker continues to focus on the issues of women and minorities in science/engineering.
Rovani Sigamoney is a chemical/environmental engineer from South Africa who started in the platinum refinery/mining sector and then moved on to researching bioenergy systems and biofuels for Africa.
She joined the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) HQ in Paris, France in 2007 and later ran the Chemistry programme and International Year of Chemistry 2011 and thereafter the Engineering programme. The Engineering Programme is working with countries, international partners and program experts to strengthen engineering education through curricula development, hands-on training and capacity building. In line with UNESCO’s global priorities on Africa and Gender Equality, it focuses on women and Africa. Rovani is passionate about women in engineering and encouraging more youth to pursue careers in engineering.
She previously worked at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Paris on a biofuels strategy and also at the Wuppertal Institute of Climate Change in Germany on a policy document for the European Parliament on the security of energy supply.
Growing complexity and magnitude of the challenges facing humanity require new ways of understanding and operationalizing solutions for more healthy, sustainable, secure, and joyful living. Developed almost contemporaneously but separately, the National Academy of Engineering's 14 Grand Challenges (GCs) and United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (GCs) describe and call for solutions to these challenges. During the 2017 meetings for the UNESCO Kick-off for Engineering Report II in Beijing, the Global Grand Challenges Summit in Washington, DC, and the World Engineering Education Forum (WEEF) in Malaysia, we expanded our work to include international perspectives on ways that the GCs and SDGs could be more strongly connected. Within this context we ask, "How can educators integrate best practices to nurture and support development of globally competent students who will reach the goals as the Engineers of 2020?" and "How can connectivity and alignment of curricula to the GCs and SDGs foster students’ development?" Conclusions from the UNESCO’s meeting were that educators and stakeholders still have much to do with respect to sharing the 17 SDGs with engineering audiences around the world. This conclusion was reiterated at WEEF when an informal poll among participants from around the world revealed that knowledge of both the GCs and the SDGs was not as wide-spread as we had initially assumed. There were several engineering educators who were learning about both of these constructs for the very first time. This led to concerns posed by students participating in the Malaysia conference as part of the Student Platform for Engineering Education Development (World SPEED). The student teams from India, Colombia, Brazil, and Korea acknowledged potential disadvantages associated with learning in the environments created by educators unequipped with knowledge of topics covered by the GCs, and the SDGs. The students were further concerned that their faculty and mentors would not be able to create educational environments that allow for development of intentional learning and conscientious projects associated the GCs and SDGs. The report here will discuss ways that the GCs and SDGs are driving international conversations about engineering curricula, diversity and inclusion, and partnerships for the goals.
White, C. K., & Tull, R. G., & Zastavker, Y. V., & Sigamoney, R. (2018, June), International Perspectives on Intersecting Engineering's Grand Challenges and the UN's Sustainable Development Goals Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--30706
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