Monday 13 April, 4:00 p.m., 1000 Micro and Nanotechnology Lab (MNTL)

Sheri D. Sheppard, Professor—Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, and Consulting Scholar—Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Abstract: A recently published Carnegie Foundation study of engineering education describes and analyzes both typical and exemplary approaches to teaching and learning engineering at the outset of the new century. It addresses the major questions of what engineering education looks like and how it prepares practitioners by exploring what lies inside the “black box” of preparation for the engineering profession. These questions are addressed in ways that will assist educators, students, university leaders, and practicing engineers to prepare future engineers more effectively. The study also provides an important point of linkage to foster an exchange of insights and best practices among and between disciplinary fields, and both graduate and undergraduate programs.

Educating Engineers: Designing for the Future of the Field is the final report from the Foundation’s study. As the Senior Scholar at the Foundation and lead author of the report, Professor Sheppard will describe the dominant model of engineering education, outline improvements to better align educational practices with the needs to today’s engineering professionals, and propose an alternate (and fairly radical) model suggested by new understanding of how people learn. Ample time will be allotted in the session for Q&A, and discussion.

Sheri D. Sheppard, Ph.D., P.E., is the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Consulting Senior Scholar principally responsible for the Preparations for the Professions Program (PPP) engineering study, the results of which are in the report Educating Engineers: Designing for the Future of the Field. In addition, she is professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. Besides teaching both undergraduate and graduate design-related classes at Stanford University, she conducts research on weld and solder-connect fatigue and impact failures, fracture mechanics, and applied finite element analysis. In 2003 Dr. Sheppard was named co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to form the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education (CAEE), along with faculty at the University of Washington, Colorado School of Mines, and Howard University. She was co-principal investigator with Professor Larry Leifer on a multi-university NSF grant that was critically looking at engineering undergraduate curriculum (Synthesis); one of her key contributions in Synthesis was the development of a pedagogy called mechanical dissection.

Sheri served as co-director of Stanford’s Learning Lab (1997-1999), was Chair of Stanford’s Faculty Senate in 2006-2007, and since September of 2008 has served as Associate Vice provost of Graduate Education. For the last ten years she has been the faculty advisor to the Stanford graduate student group MEWomen.

Sheri is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE). She was awarded the 2004 ASEE Chester F. Carlson Award in recognition of distinguished accomplishments in engineering education, and the 2005 ASEE Wickenden Best Journal of Engineering Education Paper Award. Before coming to Stanford University, she held several positions in the automotive industry, including senior research engineer at Ford Motor Company’s Scientific Research Lab. Dr. Sheppard’s graduate work was done at the University of Michigan.

Sheppard’s co-authors on Educating Engineers: Designing for the Future of the Field are Kelley Macatangay, Anne Colby and William Sullivan.