Centre hosts Dr Roger Gonzalez on his UK & Ireland research trip on Engineering Education

The purpose of Dr Gonzalez’s study is to understand how engineering education programs in the UK/Ireland approach the following matters:
•    Professional skill development (e.g., Leadership development) 
•    Widening participation for underserved populations - accessibility AND achievement
•    Innovative program sustainability
•    Globalization of engineering as relating to learner aspects
 
His intent is to visit 20+ institutions throughout the UK and talk with key players on the topics above over a 12-month period starting in June 2022. Dr Gonzalez has hit the ground running since he arrived in the UK a few weeks' ago; he attended the Engineering Professors Council Congress in Bristol, gave a CEE 'Conversation Series' lecture with Dr Clare Gartland (University of Suffolk) on US perspectives to widening access to higher education, and has taken part in several meetings and roundtables organised by the CEE.
 

Biographical overview:
Dr. Roger V. Gonzalez is Chair and Professor within the Engineering Education and Leadership Department at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) – a leader in social mobility by educating the underserved population of the region by achieving both access and excellence.

While active in musculoskeletal biomechanics research, additive manufacturing, and in development of low-cost prosthetic devices (Founder of LIMBS International) he is on the forefront of undergraduate engineering education and was awarded an ASEE Teaching Award and the Minnie Stevens Piper Award for excellence in teaching. As the inaugural and Director and Chair of the USA’s first Bachelors of Science degree in Engineering Innovation and Leadership, the program has adopted some of the most progressive and emerging practices in engineering education not only in pedagogical practices, but particularly how it serves and enhances the education of underserved students.

Via two external grants over a 6-year period, he partnered with Olin College during the development and early stages of the program’s development to implement and assess how Olin’s model of engineering education can adapt in a large, commuter, urban, minority, low-resourced student body. To date, they have had five graduating cohorts and their program is the first ABET accredited program in Engineering Leadership (now Engineering Innovation and Leadership). Dr. Gonzalez also serves as an engineering program evaluator for ABET.