Engineering Education Innovation

Engineering education programs must keep up with the pace of globalization and technological advancement.

The Engineering Education Innovation research group seeks to understand and improve the total educational experience in order to prepare engineering students for the demands of a changing workplace. Areas of focus include analyzing student motivation and gain insight into their emotional state as a means to assess the effectiveness of current educational practices.

Tomorrow Needs Global Competency

In the process the group is required to shift their methodology from familiar, numerical experiments to the more nuanced measurement often employed by social scientists. With their finding the research group will develop curriculum improvement design to increase students' global competency and lifelong learning skills to better prepare graduates for academic and professional work.

The Senior Design program in mechanical engineering builds on our lab-based, hands-on curriculum to provide students with “their first job,” a project supplied by companies and entrepreneurs.

Enterprises are student-led companies embracing rich experiences in engineering design, team building, project management, and end-to-end original product development.

Faculty + Research = Discovery

Our department boasts world-class faculty who have access to numerous innovative research labs and are committed to discovery and learning.

This encompasses a range of research areas, experiences, and expertise related to engineering education innovation. Learn more about our faculty and their research interests:

Research Projects

Our faculty engage in a number of research projects, many of which are publicly funded.

A sample listing of recent research projects appears below. You can also view a broader list of research projects taking place across the mechanical engineering-engineering mechanics department.

Past Projects

Watch Clean Snowmobile Challenge video
Preview image for Clean Snowmobile Challenge video

Clean Snowmobile Challenge

“The team’s primary goal is to make cleaner burning, quieter snowmobiles that are still fun to ride. This year we competed with a Yamaha Viper chassis and a Ski-Doo Skandic chassis powered by a diesel engine provided by Kohler Engines.”Clean Snowmobile Enterprise at 2023 Design Expo