Engineering Unleashed Faculty Development

Maria-Isabel Carnasciali is the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research at the new School of Engineering & Computational Sciences at Merrimack College. Previously, she was Assistant Provost for Assessment & Faculty Development at the University of New Haven, CT. She is a Tenured Professor of Mechanical Engineering and enjoys teaching courses in thermo/fluids and Engineering Design. Her prior NSF-funded research focused on the nontraditional engineering student – understanding their motivations, identity development, and impact of prior engineering-related experiences. Her current work dwells into learning in informal settings such as summer camps, military experiences, and extra-curricular activities. Other research interests involve validation of CFD models for aerospace and industrial applications, as well as optimizing efficiency of thermal-fluid systems. She brings with her over 10 years best practices for the development of an entrepreneurial mindset (EM) and her many efforts to support faculty in the integration of EM into engineering curricula. In her free time, she is likely out sailing or boating!

Andy is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Lawrence Technological University. He has developed undergraduate and graduate courses in fluid mechanics, creative problem solving, leadership, engineering design, and first-year introductory engineering. He is the supervisor of the Thermal Science and Aerodynamics Laboratories, Coordinator of the Aeronautical Engineering Minor and the Interdisciplinary Design & Entrepreneurial Applications curriculum, and faculty advisor for the student branch of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics & SAE Aero Design team. He facilitates workshops worldwide for K-12 and higher education instructors, focusing on active, collaborative, and problem-based learning, as well as training professional engineers in creative problem solving and innovation. He has received five best paper awards from American Society for Engineering Educators. He is also an author of the top-selling Fluid Mechanics textbook. Dr. Gerhart was awarded the 2010 Michigan Professor of the Year (by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education), Lawrence Tech’s teaching and faculty awards, and two leadership awards from the Engineering Society of Detroit (ESD). He was elected to ESD’s College of Fellows, and serves on the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Performance Test Code Committee for Air-cooled Condensers.

Joe Tranquillo is the Associate Provost for Transformative Teaching and Learning and a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Bucknell University. He was the first direct hire in a new biomedical engineering program, which has since grown to 7 faculty, ~100 students, and has been ranked five times in a row as the number one undergraduate biomedical engineering program by US News and World Report. Joe previously served as the Director of the Teaching and Learning Center and co-director of the Institute for Leadership in Technology and Management and co-founded the Bucknell Innovation Group and KEEN Winter Interdisciplinary Design Experience. Off campus, Joe is an ASEE Fellow, AIMBE Fellow, BMES Fellow, National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering Education Fellow, Senior Member of IEEE, NSF Pathways to Innovation Faculty Fellow, past chair of the ASEE Biomedical Engineering Division, co-editor of the Morgan and Claypool Biomedical Engineering Book Series, Media Director for BigBeacon and serves on several national and international boards. He has been recognized with awards including the National Biomedical Engineering Teaching Award, ASEE Theo Pilkington Outstanding Educator, and has been nominated twice for the CASE US Professor of the Year. Joe has delivered over 100 intensive teaching workshops, including in Peru, Finland, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, United Kingdom and Columbia. Joe is the author of five books and over 200 articles and conference proceedings. His work, conducted exclusively with undergraduates, has been feature on the Discovery Channel, TEDx, Gates Foundation, Google, LinkedIn, and CNN Health. He has received ~$3M in funded from NASA, NIH, NSF, Kern Family Foundation, VentureWell, Degenstein Foundation, and the US Department of Defense. Joe is an affiliate faculty member of Cornell University, an international faculty member at Universidad Catolica de Chile, and was a visiting scholar at Stanford University and the University of Utah.

Glenn R. Gaudette, PhD, is the inaugural John W. Kozarich '71 Chair of the Department of Engineering at Boston College. Working together with his colleagues, they have developed the first Engineering program in the history of BC. His research has pioneered the use of plants as scaffold for heart regeneration. This work lead to significant recognition, including Prof Gaudette and his colleagues being featured throughout the world including Bill Nye Saves the World (on Netflix), CBS’s Innovation Nation, the BBC (live interview) and Popular Science. The work was displayed at the Centre Pompidou (Paris) as part of an exhibit entitled “The Factory of Life”. Recently, a children’s book (From Plant to Human: The Extraordinary Spinach-Leaf Heart by Oscar Silver) was published about this inspiring work. His recent research aims to develop cost-effective methods for growing meat in the laboratory setting, which could reduce our reliance on conventional animal agriculture. Dr. Gaudette also teaches engineering mechanics, design and innovation, biomechanics and physiology. He promotes the development of a mindset for helping others, especially in the technical courses he teaches. He was named the 2015 Faculty Member of the Year by the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network and was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and the National Academy of Inventors.

Dr. Heather Dillon is Professor and Chair of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington Tacoma, where her research team is currently working on renewable energy systems, solid-state lighting, energy efficiency in buildings, fundamental heat transfer studies and engineering education. She is the Chair of the Council on Undergraduate Research Engineering Division and recently served as the Fulbright Canada Research Chair in STEM Education at the University of Calgary, Alberta. Before joining academia, Heather Dillon worked for the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) as a senior research engineer working on both energy efficiency and renewable energy systems, where she received the US Department of Energy Office of Science Outstanding Mentor Award. During her time at the University of Portland she received the Provost’s Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Research Faculty Member (2017) and the Outstanding Scholarship Award (2020).