People

 

Mary Besterfield-Sacre

mary besterfield sacre

Department: Staff/Administrator

Email: mbsacre@pitt.edu

Phone: 412-624-9836

Office: 148 Benedum Hall

Engineering Education Focus: Mary's principal research is in engineering education assessment, which has been funded by the NSF, Department of Education, Sloan Foundation, Engineering Information Foundation, and VentureWell. Mary's current research focuses on three distinct but highly correlated areas – innovative design and entrepreneurship, engineering modeling, and global competency in engineering.

Recent Engineering Education Papers:

  • Streiner, S.C., and M. Besterfield-Sacre, “Development of the Global Engineering Programming Model: A Participatory, Mixed-Methods Approach,” Journal of International Engineering Education. 1, no1 (2018) pp. 1-34. https://doi.org/10.23860/jiee.2018.01.01.03 (2) 3.
  • Clark, R.M., A. Kaw, Y. Lou, A. Scott, and M. Besterfield-Sacre. “Evaluating Blended and Flipped Instruction in Numerical Methods at Multiple Engineering Schools,” International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 12, no 1 (2018) pp. 1-16. DOI: 10.20429/ijsotl.2018.120111. (3) 6.
  • Besterfield-Sacre, M.E., S. Zappe, A. Shartrand, and K. Hochstedt (2016). “Faculty and Student Perceptions of the Content of Entrepreneurship Courses in Engineering Education,” Advances in Engineering Education, 5, no1 (2016): 1-27.

Active Grants and Recent Achievement Awards:

  • Collaborative Research: INCLUDES – Toward an Alliance to Prepare a National Faculty for Broadening Success of Underrepresented 2-Year and 4-Year STEM Students NSF-ICER 1649105
  • Innovation Through Propagation: Determining an Engineering Education Research Agenda, NSF/ DRL-1451263
  • Collaborative Research: Assessing the Spectrum of International Undergraduate Engineering Educational Experiences, NSF/EEC–1160404

Renee Clark

renee clark

Department: Industrial Engineering

Email: rmclark@pitt.edu

Phone: 412-648-5359

Office: B12 Benedum Hall

Engineering Education Focus: Dr. Clark conducts research on both externally and internally-funded education-related projects with faculty interested in enhancing and assessing instructional practices within their classrooms. Renee conducts both quantitative and qualitative assessment and evaluation and focuses on pedagogies for active learning, learner-centered instruction, and engineering professional development, including reflection and metacognition, simple active learning to drive interactivity and application, flipped classrooms, adaptive learning, design thinking, and game-based instruction. Another current research area for Dr. Clark is promoting the propagation of active learning in the Swanson School via a 2018 award from the Provost’s Office, in which she coaches and mentors faculty who have an interest in implementing or enhancing active learning in their classrooms, often for the first time. She is also a newly-appointed associate editor for Advances in Engineering Education.

Recent Engineering Education Papers:

  • Jeffrey, D. & Clark, R. (2019). Supplementing Western Perspectives of Learner-Centered Instruction with a Daoist Approach Towards Authentic Power Sharing in the Classroom. International J. of Contemporary Education, 2(1), 9-16.
  • Clark, R., & Dickerson, S. Assessing the Impact of Reflective Activities in Digital and Analog Electronics Courses. Accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Education, November 2018, DOI 10.1109/TE.2018.2885720.
  • Clark, R., & Dickerson, S. (2018). A Case Study of Post-Workshop Use of Simple Active Learning in an Introductory Computing Sequence. IEEE Transactions on Education, 61(3), 167-176.

Active Grants and Recent Achievement Awards:

  • Co-Principal Investigator: NSF Research Initiation: Systematic Use of Simulation in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Classroom to Drive Reflection and Metacognition; 9/1/2018-8/31/2020; $200,000 (Award # 1830735)
  • Project Director: University of Pittsburgh Office of Provost 2018 Innovation in Education Award Propagation of Active Learning within the Swanson School of Engineering; 5/1/2018-4/30/2019; $15,000

April Dukes

April Dukes

Department: Engineering Education Research Center

Email: aprila@pitt.edu

Phone: 412-383-6014

Office: B12 Benedum Hall

Engineering Education Focus: 

Dr. April Dukes is currently the Faculty and Future Faculty Program Director for the Engineering Educational Research Center (EERC) and the Institutional Co-leader for Pitt-CIRTL (Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning) at the University of Pittsburgh. Her current research and teaching efforts engage graduate students, postdocs, and faculty to inform and support systemic change toward excellence and inclusivity in higher education. April serves as co-PI of the NSF-funded Division Of Undergraduate Education (DUE) project, Increasing Implementation of Proven Inclusivity Practices in Undergraduate Engineering Education, and she is a collaborator of the NSF national educational research initiative, the Aspire Alliance. Throughout her professional career, April has mentored trainees at various stages inclusive and equitable practices, career development, educational research, and course design.

Recent Engineering Education Papers:

  • Vaden J, Bilec M, Dukes A, Nave A, Landis A, & Parrish K. (2023). Inclusive Engineering Classrooms and Learning Communities: Reflections and Lessons Learned from Three Partner Universities in Year 2.  Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore, MD.  
  • Dukes AA, Gillian-Daniel DL, Greenler RA, Parent R, Bridgen S, Esters LT, & El-Sayed J. (2023) Chapter 8: An Inclusive Professional Framework for Faculty: Implementing Inclusive and Holistic Professional Development that Transcends Multiple Faculty Roles, In Handbook of STEM Faculty Development (pp 83-94). Information Age Publishing. 
  • Knezz SN, Gillian-Daniel DL, Calderon CI, Dukes AA, Greenler R, & Macias L. (2023) Chapter 13: Improving Gender Diversity in STEM Through an Inclusive Professional Framework, In Leading Change in Gender and Diversity in Higher Education From Margins to Mainstream (pp 280-299). Routledge. 
  • Vaden JM, Dukes AA, Parrish K, Nave AH, Landis A, & Bilec MM (2022, June 26-29). Developing and Sustaining Inclusive Engineering Learning Communities and Classrooms [NSF Grantees poster presentation]. ASEE 2022 Annual Conference: Excellence Through Diversity, Minneapolis, MN, United States.
  • Vaden JM, Dukes AA, Parrish K, Nave AH, Landis A & Bilec MM (2022, June 1-3). Improving and Sustaining Inclusive Classroom Environments in Engineering [Poster presentation]. 2022 IUSE Summit: Propelling Change: Moving from Strategy Toward Effective & Equitable Undergraduate STEM Education, Washington, DC, United States.
  • Rodriguez Alonso J, Keith JA, & Dukes, AA (2022) A diversity index to assess college engineering team performance. In: ASEE North Central Section Annual Conference, 18 March 2022 - 19 March 2022, Pittsburgh, PA.
  • Gillian-Daniel DL, Greenler RM, Bridgen ST, Dukes AA, and Hill LB. (2021) Inclusion in the Classroom, Lab, and Beyond: Transferable Skills via an Inclusive Professional Framework for Faculty. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 53:5, 48-55
  • Jimenez J, Dukes AA, Fedorchak MV. (2021) Integrating Public Health Topics in Drug Delivery System Education. ASEE Virtual Annual Conference, 2021.
  • Pliner EM, Dukes AA, Beschorner KE, Mahboobin A (2020) Effects of student interests on engagement and performance in biomechanics. J. Appl. Biomech. 36(5):360-367.
  • Clark RM, Besterfield-Sacre M, Dukes A. (2020) Supportive Classroom Assessment for Remote Instruction. Advances in Engineering Education. 8(4)
  • Dallal A, Dukes A, Clark RM. (2020), Student Performance in Partially Flipped ECE Laboratory Classes Paper. Presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Online.
  • Dukes AA, Sowko, LA, Gartner M, Barber BJ, Clark, RM. (2019) Assessing the Impact of Embedding Nursing Students in Bioengineering Senior Design Projects: Student Perceptions of Interprofessional Team Benefits and Challenges. ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, 2019.
  • Avery L, Dukes A, and Warner M. (2019) An intervention to increase accuracy and understanding in undergraduate micropipette use. Presented at: IMMUNOLOGY 2019™, Annual Meeting of The American Association of Immunologists, May 9 – 13, The American Association of Immunologists, Inc., San Diego, Abstract 61.9

Scott Streiner

Scott Streiner

Department: Industrial Engineering

Email: scs147@pitt.edu

Phone: 704-264-6415

Office: 1035 Benedum Hall

Engineering Education Focus: 

Design and Playful Assessment of Engineering Ethics Through Game-Based Interventions 

Ethics education has been recognized as increasingly important to engineering over the past two decades, although disagreement exists concerning how ethics can and should be taught in the classroom. With the support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) program, a collaboration of investigators from the University of Connecticut, New Jersey Institute of Technology, University of Pittsburgh, and Rowan University are conducting a mixed-methods project investigating how game-based or playful learning with strongly situated components can influence first-year engineering students’ ethical knowledge, awareness, and decision making. 

These games provide opportunities to educate young engineers on the importance of ethical decision making while in the field. This is a process called Gamification, which adds common video game elements into homework assignments, projects, and courses in order to peak students' interests and encourage them to engage with the activity. Mars: An Ethical Expedition, Cards Against Engineering Ethics, and Toxic Workplaces engage students using captivating stories, teamwork, scorekeeping, competition, and fun! More information can be found here: 

 
https://sites.google.com/view/engineering-ethics/home 

 

Ethics Education Across Cultures 

Ethics has long been recognized as crucial to responsible engineering, but the increasingly global environments of contemporary engineering present new challenges to effective engineering ethics training. With the support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Ethical and Responsible Research (ER2) program, a collaboration of investigators from Virginia Tech, University of Pittsburgh, Delft University of Technology, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University are conducting a mixed-methods project examining the effects of culture and educational experiences on ethics training in undergraduate engineering students. 

Engineering education has given insufficient attention to the global dimensions of ethics. Understanding how culture affects ethics could contribute to more inclusive engineering education. There are also implication for more effective responsible research education at the graduate level as the graduate population in STEM has become increasingly globalized and yet very limited studies are focused on designing culturally responsive ethics curriculum for graduate students with diverse backgrounds. 

 

Recent Engineering Education Papers:

  • Jackson, A., C. Bodnar, S. Streiner, K. Dahm, K. Mallouk, and Oestreich, B., “Application of Entrepreneurial Minded Learning Design Projects to Develop First-Year Engineering Students’ Entrepreneurial Mindset,” International Journal of Engineering Education, vol. 38, no. 1 (2022), pp. 237-252. 
  • Burkey, D., R. Cimino, M. Young, K. Dahm, and S. Streiner (2022). “It’s all Relative: Examining Student Ethical Decision Making in a Narrative Game-Based Ethical Intervention”, Frontiers in Education (FIE) Conference, October 2022. 
  • Clancy, R., Q. Zhu, S. Streiner, A. Gammon, and R. Thorpe (2022). “Exploring the Relations between Ethical Reasoning and Moral Intuitions”, Proceedings of the 2022 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Minneapolis, MN, June 2022. 
  • Reed, J., S. Streiner, M. Young, R. Cimino, K. Dahm, and D. Burkey (2021). “Mapping the Landscape of First-Year Engineering Students’ Conceptualizations of Ethical Decision Making”, Proceedings of the 2021 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, virtual conference, July 2021. 
 

Active Grants and Recent Achievement Awards:

  • Co-Principal Investigator: NSF Ethical and Responsible Research (ER2): Responsible Engineering Across Cultures: Investigating the Effects of Culture and Education on Ethical Reasoning and Dispositions of Engineering Students; 10/1/2021-10/31/2026; $198,562 (Award # 2202691)
     
  • Co-Principal Investigator: E-ETHIC2S: Engineering Ethics Through High-Impact Collaborative/Competitive Scenarios ; 3/15/2020-2/29/2024; $182,214 (Award # 2211320)