Get an EM-infused framework for design thinking that teaches students how to manage value tensions and prioritize sustainability!

When: June 3 - 6, 2024
Where: Minneapolis, MN

How can instructors incorporate sustainability into our classrooms to allow students to manage the value tensions inherent in sustainability considerations, making them attractive to the job market?

Unraveling the Value Tensions of Sustainability with EML (UVT) will provide you with a new framework for design thinking that infuses both sustainability and entrepreneurially minded learning (EML), helping you to teach students how to balance tensions in value creation to prioritize sustainability.

Who Should Attend: Faculty and instructors who desire to infuse, discuss and create value with regard to sustainability in their undergraduate and graduate level course(s), curriculum and/or research using EML.

Registration closed, workshop is full.
Workshop Full

3 Key Takeaways:

Everything you learn from the facilitation and coaching team and other participants can be immediately applied to your context and topics of interest.

  • Define, apply and utilize the three pillars of sustainability and the different phases of design thinking to their own discipline/project.

  • Integrate and combine sustainability-focused and entrepreneurial mindset learning outcomes with the learning outcomes of their course.

  • Create EM-sustainability integrated learning activities discussing the value tensions of sustainability.

Registration Countdown

The UVT workshop is full, registration is closed.

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Workshop Full

Workshop Phases

Each EUFD National workshop consists of three distinct phases, the Quickstart, Meetup, and Press Onward, over the course of a year.

  • 1. QuickStart

    The QuickStart course begins your adventure. You can start your journey immediately after registering. In this self-paced online course, you will begin learning the central ideas of the workshop and how they apply the entrepreneurial mindset (EM). The facilitation team has customized your introduction to the workshops topics and will ask you to identify a candidate project.

  • 2. Meetup

    Within the Meetup course and event, you will interact (and likely even have some fun) with the facilitation team and other participants. The Meetup for this particular workshop will be in-person! Up to thirty participants will meet in Minneapolis, MN from June 3 - 6, 2024. Learning from each other is always one of the most valuable and memorable parts of any workshop sequence. Individual participants will arrive — and a community will emerge.

  • 3. Press Onward

    Pressing Onward can be transformative. Following the Meetup event you will have a series of online meetings over the course of the year with members of the coaching team, individually or with other participants. The ample time between meetings affords an opportunity to develop your ideas and experiment. Get real results as you apply what you learned and share discoveries along the way. When complete, you'll publish a card on EngineeringUnleashed.com to serve as a resource for the community.

Facilitators and Coaches

Facilitator & Coach

Anna Howard

Anna Howard graduated from the Penn State Rotorcraft Center of Excellence before beginning a teaching career at North Carolina State University. She has championed flipped classrooms and teaching with technology in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department with a special focus on how to teach Engineering Statics. She has developed extensive materials for Statics including short concept videos, example videos, quizzes, full class-notes, and demonstrations. She uses gamification, student-response activities, and teamwork built on Scale-Up principles in class to teach almost 600 students per year. She is currently converting these materials for open-source use. Howard is active at ASEE at both the national (Mechanical Engineering Division and the Mechanics Division) and regional levels (Southeastern Section). She is the Campus Rep for ASEE and is one of the campus leaders for KEEN at NC State.

Facilitator & Coach

Katherine Saul

Dr. Saul is a Professor and University Faculty Scholar of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC. The research performed in her Movement Biomechanics Laboratory aims to improve treatment for upper limb neuromusculoskeletal conditions by providing biomechanical insight to clinicians regarding the effects of neuromuscular and orthopaedic injury, predicting outcomes of surgical interventions, and understanding healthy and impaired motor control. Dr. Saul is a Fellow of the American Society of Biomechanics, an Engineering Unleashed Fellow of the Kern Family Foundation, and an OpenSim Fellow of the National Center for Simulation in Rehabilitation Research. She has served on the Executive Board of the American Society of Biomechanics as Meeting Chair, Diversity Task Force Chair, and Secretary, and as Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Biomechanics and PLOS ONE. Dr. Saul also served as a UNC System Academic Affairs Faculty Fellow from 2019-2021 exploring digital learning initiatives. Other honors include being named the American Society of Biomechanics Predoctoral Young Scientist (2005), Medtronic Foundation Graduate Fellow, Whitaker Foundation Graduate Fellow, NCAA Woman of the Year (Rhode Island, 2000), and Brown Univesrity Athletics Hall of Fame recipient. She has received the Outstanding Teaching Award at NCSU at the department, college, university, and Alumni Association levels and the Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award from the NCSU Graduate School. Dr. Saul received her ScB in Engineering from Brown University in 2000, and her MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University. She was previously interim Department Head of Forest Biomaterials at NC State in 2023, and an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Orthopaedic Surgery at Wake Forest School of Medicine from 2007-2013.

Facilitator & Coach

Nathalie Lavoine

"Nathalie Lavoine is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Forest Biomaterials at NC State University (Raleigh, NC). She received her PhD degree in 2013 from the Laboratory of Pulp & Paper Sciences, and Graphic Arts in France and conducted two postdoctoral research experiences at the University of Tokyo, Japan (2014-2016) and Stockholm University, Sweden (2016-2018) prior to joining NC State in 2018. Her research activities aim to decipher the process-structure-function-performance relationships of renewable, naturally-occuring materials for the development of high-performance tailored sustainable products. She has built a research-education integrated platform to advance the engineering and manufacturing of sustainable packaging and the commercialization of plant-derived nanomaterials. This platform fosters entrepreneurial thinking to boost outcomes in sustainable advanced materials meanwhile offering career opportunities and professional development support to undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral researchers."

Facilitator & Coach

Rico Ruffino

Rico Ruffino is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Forest Biomaterials. He is an instructor for Principles of Sustainable Product Development, Product Visualization, and Sustainable Product Development Capstone. Assistant Professor Ruffino has produced a Sustainable Design and Testing Service Center that aids companies in creating and testing new sustainable product development. He is developing a sustainable materials technology design lab within Hodges Wood Products Facility. It will enable students to design and fabricate more environmentally and human-centered products. Some of the critical areas are to utilize technology that will streamline the ideation process to minimize the overuse of resources. Professor Ruffino is a member of the Industrial Design Society of America and the Sustainable Furniture Council. He is actively involved in various working groups exploring sustainability within the furnishings industry.

Transform your teaching, research, or service.

Engineering Unleashed Faculty Development Workshops deliver actionable, adaptable strategies and resources that empower you to create long-lasting value with the entrepreneurial mindset (EM). Expert faculty from top institutions have created these workshops that provide guidance to complete a project while collaborating with faculty from across the nation.