Wilhelmina Savenye - US grants

This IGERT award at the Arts, Media and Engineering Program at Arizona State University will develop research and training mechanisms for the creation of a new class of media scientists. These scientists will produce new approaches for the integration of computational elements and digital media in the physical human experience. Their work will result in experiential media systems - hybrid physical-digital environments that address significant challenges in key areas of the human condition such as health, education and everyday living.

The knowledge required to create experiential media systems is currently fragmented across engineering, sciences and arts. This IGERT award will train a new generation of hybrid media engineers-scientists-artists who are equipped to transcend this fragmentation. The training will be realized through a large interdisciplinary network combining expertise from twelve contributing disciplines. This network will allow integrated advanced research in sensing, modeling, feedback, experiential construction and learning. The research will result in new knowledge in media systems as well as within each contributing area. It will also result in the development of large-scale applications of societal significance. The graduate training mechanisms are implemented through formally approved concentrations within the graduate degree programs of participating disciplines. They combine discipline specific education in one of the IGERT research areas with interdisciplinary training in media development. The framework of this IGERT allows for methodology found in the sciences to be combined with creativity found in the arts. It will bridge the gap between computation and the physical experience, advance human-centric technologies and produce major advances in education, rehabilitation, communication, and everyday living. IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary background, deep knowledge in a chosen discipline, and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries.

Most of our physical infrastructure is built on unsaturated soils, yet for both technical and historical reasons, educators continue to reserve the teaching of unsaturated soil mechanics to the graduate level curriculum. Billions of dollars are at risk annually from moisture-sensitive soil damage to infrastructure. At the other extreme, billions of dollars are wasted annually due to overly conservative structures that are designed based on an assumption of saturated soil properties. Improving student understanding of unsaturated soil behavior could result in large cost savings in both the public and private sectors. In addition, a recent survey indicates that a majority of geotechnical faculty think that unsaturated soils mechanics should be introduced at the undergraduate level. Students' depth of understanding of soils as an engineering material would be greatly enhanced via introduction of geotechnical principles for unsaturated conditions, with the saturated soil case being presented as a subset of the broader theory. This project involves developing student-centered lecture and laboratory modules on the basic principles of unsaturated soils theory and the application of these principles to problems of movement of structural foundation systems. The modules emphasize solving geo-hazard problems of collapsible and expansive soils. Emerging geotechnical challenges in the energy sector are used as additional motivational examples. These modules are being pilot-tested on students at seven universities, with a large and diverse set of students to ensure that the modules are not biased toward a particular subset of students.

The NSF Engineering Research Centers Unite project aims to develop and test a comprehensive set of instruments designed to enhance the evaluation of education and diversity programs offered by NSF-funded Engineering Research Centers (ERC). ERC education and diversity programming, including academic year activities with undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral scholars plus summer programs for undergraduate students, high school students, K-12 teachers, and community college instructors, is a mechanism to disseminate emerging knowledge from center activities. It is critically important that programs offered by these large, multi-institutional centers be evaluated for effectiveness to ensure their impact beyond ERC technical research. The resulting suite of instruments supplemented by an evaluator toolbox will fill an existing void and allow centers to collaborate in ways previously not possible. This will enhance our understanding of ERCs and their overall impact on skill development, climate of inclusion, and future STEM workforce development.

This project is led by the Arizona State University Tri-ERC Education Consortium (TEEC), which consists of education leaders, researchers, and evaluators associated with three currently funded ERCs - Center for Bio-mediated and Bio-inspired Geotechnics (CBBG), Nanosystems Center for Nano-Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT), and Center for Quantum Energy and Sustainable Solar Technologies (QESST). The goals to be undertaken by this team include: 1) identifying the evaluation needs of currently funded ERCs, 2) creating a suite of evaluation instruments, 3) creating an evaluator toolbox, and 4) making our resources broadly available. We will create quantitative (e.g. survey) and qualitative (e.g., interview, focus group, and lab observation protocols) measures informed by the needs and perspectives of current ERCs. These instruments will be field-tested across TEEC ERCs and other participating ERCs who have indicated an interest in using the suite of instruments. These instruments will be accompanied by an evaluator toolbox designed to support and guide evaluators in the use of these instruments. These resources will doubly serve as a means of creating an ERC community of practice around evaluation. The resulting resources will be made broadly available electronically through currently used ERC websites/hubs. Additionally, the quantitative Multi-ERC Instrument (MERCI) will be converted into an online ERC Evaluation System easily accessed by evaluators. The proposed system will specifically streamline quantitative evaluation, which will provide for greater flexibility and creativity in the selection of qualitative evaluation approaches used by center evaluators. The adoption of these shared resources by numerous ERCs will open up never before seen opportunities for cross-ERC comparisons. The findings will significantly impact how ERCs evaluate their education and diversity programming and presents a potential suite of instruments for effectively evaluating any large center that offers similar education and diversity programs.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.