Research Interests
My research has recently focused on taking an Actor-Network Theory (ANT) approach to understanding how undergraduate engineers move through disciplinary degree programs. I have chosen to study the under-researched sophomore year as the primary site for my ethnographic observations, interviews, and overall qualitative data collection and analysis.
During the process of "following the actors", a slogan of ANT, I have investigated the unique history and architecture of the Engineering Center at the University of Colorado. A brutalist, concrete structure that has been the butt of campus jokes since its opening over 50 years ago, this building and its origin story are excellent examples of actor-networks put into brick and mortar that endure until the present day. It's rare that a structure built a half-century ago can still be a source of controversy - the ANT perspective encourages us to dig into this controversy, trace each actor and connection, in order to understand how this ugly building that we pass through and deal with, daily, actually represents the interests and negotiations of its creators.
The building is just a jumping-off point for continued ANT analysis of engineering sophomore year.
University of Colorado Boulder Campus in 1963, before the Engineering Center was built. The grassy quadrant in the front center of the photo is the building site. [Davis, W. E. (1965). Glory Colorado!: A history of the University of Colorado,1858-1963. Boulder, Colo: Pruett Press, p. 783].
An early attempt at visualizing Actor-Network Theory for conference posters. The "aliens" are used to represent students, thanks to an undergraduate student who told me that he felt engineering school was a process in which you were training to become an alien, more and more alien with every course and year in school. In this graphic, these student aliens are drifting through space and time, forming and dissolving various connections with other human and non-human actors including computers, solution manuals, instructors, textbooks, study rooms, and more.
One of my prior research projects involved assessment of the YOU'RE@CU Mentoring Program, including qualitative data collection and analysis towards continuously improving the program for all participants. The YOU'RE@CU Program pairs an undergraduate with a graduate student to expose the undergraduate student to an exciting research project during a single semester.
Context
I am a researcher in the field of engineering education. My work focuses on qualitative approaches to understand the sociocultural environments of engineering undergraduate school. I graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder Department of Mechanical Engineering in Summer 2015 with a Doctor of Philosophy degree. I’ve been an instructor in the College of Engineering and Applied Science since 2016, and in the Department of Mechanical Engineering since 2018.
After working as a mechanical and systems engineer at a consumer robotics company in the mid-2000s, I chose to enter a PhD program in engineering with the dream of changing engineering culture for the better. I hope to inspire and encourage a broader demographic to believe that they can be engineers too - that engineering is actually enormously creative and fun! My prior experiences in consumer products, robotics, manufacturing, usability studies, yoga, and teaching have provided me with grounded perspectives in my graduate study.
I look forward to finding academic avenues where I can teach growing engineers and continue exploring ways to change engineering culture for the better. My past projects include a novel curriculum for teaching statics through tangible sensations in the body - see here for more information.