Virtual
April 16, 2021
April 16, 2021
April 17, 2021
Diversity and Labs and experiential learning
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10.18260/1-2--38275
https://peer.asee.org/38275
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Associate Professor of Engineering at Benedict College, has been teaching undergraduate transportation, mathematics, statistics, and computer science courses at different levels. He has been involved in undergraduate research experiences programs since 2011.
He has been working on risk analyses and intelligent transportation systems through the development of applications of statistical models on different systems such as traffic signals and freeway monitoring. He is also engaged in the modeling and quantifying of cyberattacks at transportation networks under the framework of connected and autonomous vehicles. He is currently serving as associate director at the Clemson University-lead Tier 1 University Transportation Center for Connected Multimodal Mobility. Part of different NSF and DOT funded projects.
Dr. Zulfikar Berk’s research interests include constructivist learning approaches, global education, experiential learning, and problem-based learning. He is enthusiastic about the contribution of innovative pedagogical approaches by working on various teaching and learning models in advancing engineering education practices.
Dr. Petrulis is an independent consultant specializing in education-related project evaluation and research. He is based in Columbia, South Carolina.
Areas of research interest: Wave Propagation, Simulation of Radar Signals, Antenna and
Electromagnetic Field Theory, RF design and systems.
Biography: I received the Bachelor of science in Electrical Engineering and Master of
Science in Electrical Engineering from Tripoli University, Libya in 1998 and 2009
respectively and my PhD from University of Dayton in 2017. I am currently working as
assistant professor at Benedict College, Columbia, SC. Prior to joining the Benedict College, I worked as teaching assistant at University of Dayton, 2013-2017, and an instructor at Tripoli Institute of Electronic Technology, 2010-2012. I was a project manager at Aljeel Aljadeed for Technology, 2011-2012. I started my carrier with General post and telecommunication Company as team leader and then the manager of solar cell
department, 2000-2010. I am as a member of committee, the Effect of the Electromagnetic Fields. I worked as a member to implement the guidelines of the WHO on non-ionized radiation (ICNIRP) in Libya since 2008. I have so far published IEEE conferences papers and journals papers in the areas of my research interest. Also, I have been appointed as one of the Editorial Board members in American Journal of Electromagnetics and Applications (AJEA).
Dr. Negash Begashaw received the B. Sc. and M.Sc. degree in Mathematics from Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, D.Sc. degree in Mathematics from the university of Vienna in Vienna, Austria, and a Ph.D. degree in Mathematics from Washington State University in Pullman, Washington State, in 1979, 1982, 1993 and 1997, respectively. He is an Associate Professor in the department of Computer Science, Physics, and Engineering at Benedict College, Columbia, SC. He served as coordinator and Mentor in the Mathematical Science Scholars program at Benedict College (2002-2005) and has been the PI of the NSF STEP proposal in the academic year 2010 – 2011. He has been a Co-Organizer of the REU+ program at North Carolina State University. From 2005 to 2008, he served in the external advisory committee for the Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI). He published articles in mathematics and presented papers at conferences. His research interests include mathematical foundations, modeling, algorithms, and applications in Machine Learning and Data Science and modeling, design, analysis, and computational study of algorithms, applications in optimization/Operations Research.
The research team has been hosting undergraduate research about 10 years. Since summer 2017, faculty has been working on adopting critical pedagogy into undergraduate student research experiences through carefully designed problems and activities. However due to COVID 19, the program had to be transitioned into virtual research. In this study, we present reflections from virtual summer 2020 research experience. Results from four groups are summarized. Students were given pre and post summer research experience surveys. We compared student and faculty experiences. Differently, team interactions were not possible, activities were mainly training programs. Students were able to work with real-data previously collected and write codes. Although, final presentations were technically better than last two years. Student engagement, team working skills, peer-to-peer interaction, and overall experience disrupted significantly.
Comert, G., & Berk, Z., & Petrulis, R., & Iyangar, B., & Abuhdima, E. M., & Begashaw, N. (2021, April), Reflections from Virtual Undergraduate Summer Research Experience with Interdisciplinary Teams Paper presented at 2021 Illinois-Indiana Regional Conference, Virtual. 10.18260/1-2--38275
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