Welcoming summer

As the spring semester wraps up, I’m reflecting on the cyclical, yet ever-changing nature of life in academia. This year I’ve had the privilege to work with some wonderful students on Junior/Senior Engineering Clinic Projects and we advanced our use of network science in answering important research questions, such as:

• How do undergraduate engineering students cope with stress and which methods are most effective?

  and

• How does collaborative learning impact the social networks of engineering students?

The paper that describes our findings about how collaborative learning impacts the social networks of engineering students will be presented at the American Society for Engineering Education’s annual conference in June!

My clinic teams had 7 seniors and 2 juniors this semester, so I will be sad to say goodbye to those who are graduating.

But with the end of the academic year also comes the beginning of summer, where there is more time and space to focus on new research projects and programs. I’m excited to begin collecting and analyzing data on the impact of Engineering Unleashed Faculty Development workshops with my collaborator, Divya Sindhu Lehka, with support from the Kern Entrepreneurial Network’s Rising Star Award. I’ll also be working with colleagues at Rowan to assess the impact of Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs) on students.

Stay tuned for more updates as the summer gets underway!