Engineering Education Research: The Growth of a Discipline
Dr. Leah H. Jamieson
John A. Edwardson Dean of Engineering
Ransburg Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Reception 4:30 – 5:30 p.m.
Lecture 5:30 – 7 p.m.
IUPUI Campus Center Theater
Engineering education research is emerging as an identifiable discipline, with engineering education departments, programs, and centers of excellence and a growing community of engineering education researchers around the globe. It is bringing together decades, and even centuries, of experience in teaching engineering with more recent learning from education and social-behavioral sciences research to delve into critical questions such as:
• Who studies engineering and why?
• What are engineering ways of thinking, knowing, and doing?
• How do students of all ages learn engineering?
• How do we assess engineering education practice and learning?
• How do engineering education systems evolve?
• How do we connect engineering education research with engineering education practice?
This talk will explore the engineering education research agenda that grew out of the National Engineering Education Research Colloquies sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation in 2006. The talk will also look at the university and the professional infrastructure that go into the creation, growth, and recognition of a new field, and will summarize the opportunities and challenges for engineering education from a survey of engineering faculty committees, department chairs, and deans in the United States.
About the speaker:
Leah Jamieson is the John A. Edwardson Dean of Engineering at Purdue University, Ransburg Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and holds a courtesy appointment in Purdue’s School of Engineering Education. She served as the 2007 President and CEO of the IEEE, electrical and computer engineering’s 400,000-member global professional society. She is co-founder and past director of the EPICS – Engineering Projects in Community Service Program.
Jamieson's research has focused on speech analysis and recognition; the design and analysis of parallel processing algorithms; and the application of parallel processing to digital speech, image, and signal processing. She has authored over 175 journal papers, conference papers, and book chapters and has co-edited books on Algorithmically Specialized Parallel Computers (Academic Press, 1985) and The Characteristics of Parallel Algorithms (M.I.T. Press, 1987). She has served on editorial boards for the IEEE Transactions on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, the IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, and the Proceedings of the IEEE, and is on the Advisory Board of the Journal of Engineering Education.
Jamieson served on the steering committee for the report Changing the Conversation: Developing Effective Messages for Improving Public Understanding of Engineering (NAE, 2008), was co-chair of the American Society for Engineering Education project Innovation with Impact: Creating a Culture for Scholarly and Systematic Innovation in Engineering Education (ASEE, 2012), and was a member of the planning committee for the report Advancing Research in Science and Engineering (ARISE-II): Unleashing America’s Research & Innovation Enterprise (American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 2013). She is a member of the study committee for the NRC report on Barriers and Opportunities in Completing 2- and 4-Year STEM Degrees. She is past chair of the Anita Borg Institute’s Board of Trustees, co-chair of the Computing Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research, and current President of the IEEE Foundation.
With colleagues Edward Coyle and William Oakes, Jamieson was awarded the 2005 NAE Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education for the creation and dissemination of EPICS. She was an inaugural recipient of the NSF’s Director’s Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars and has been recognized with the IEEE Education Society’s 2000 Harriet B. Rigas “Outstanding Woman Engineering Educator” Award, the Carnegie Foundation’s Indiana Professor of the Year Award, the Anita Borg Institute’s “Women of Vision Award for Social Impact,” and the Simon Bolivar medal from the National Ministry of Education of Colombia. For her contributions to the IEEE, Jamieson was awarded the IEEE Richard M. Emberson Award and the IEEE Signal Processing Society’s Meritorious Service Award. She was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering “for innovations in integrating engineering education and community service” and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the IEEE and ASEE, an Eminent Member of IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu, an Honorary Member of Tau Beta Pi, and has been awarded an honorary doctorate from Drexel University. Jamieson received her S.B. in Mathematics from MIT and her PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University.