Best paper award – ASEE 2017

June 28, 2017

A paper co-authored by Vanessa Svihla (Organization Information and Learning Sciences – OILS, secondary appointment in CBE) and a team of UNM faculty, won the best paper award in Diversity, being selected out of 1700 submissions.  The paper was presented in a plenary session at the ASEE meeting in Columbus, OH in June 2017Vanessa Svihla, describing the unique strengths diverse students bring to their engineering coursework.  The research was conducted as part of the NSF – RED (Revolutionizing Engineering Departments) grant that was awarded to CBE in 2016.  Recognizing the myriad assets diverse students bring to the classroom is a central theme to emerge from this research.  The NSF-funded FACETS (Formation of Accomplished Chemical Engineers for Transforming Society) project explores approaches to retain and encourage skilled students in engineering, and involves a complete redesign of the ChE curriculum. Other highlights from last summer include a workshop presented at the ASEE summer school for chemical engineering faculty by Jamie Gomez and Vanessa Svihla, and a poster award to Jamie Gomez.  More details can be found on the FACETS website.