Board Profiles
Eric Wang
Scaling the Heights
If, as Robert Frost penned, the “object in living” is to unite one’s avocation and vocation, Eric Wang has found his sweet spot. An accomplished cyclist and rock climber, the assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno is a leading sports-equipment researcher, probing snowboard biomechanics and the dynamics of human falls. “Luckily, my two sports, cycling and climbing, are complementary in terms of overuse injuries,” jokes Wang, who recently switched from climbing to pedaling while he recovered from an injured shoulder.
Raised in Los Altos, Calif., Wang entered Berkeley intending to pursue physics or astronomy. Then a friend suggested mechanical engineering, telling him, “You can always transfer out of engineering if you don’t like it, but you can’t transfer in.” Wang did like it. “In hindsight, I had many of the signs that engineering was right – like working on cars, or taking apart and building things,” he reflects. After earning a master’s from MIT, Wang, by then a competitive mountain bike racer, decided to go for a Ph.D. if he could “work on bikes.” He found such a program at the University of California, Davis, where he investigated the quantification and optimization of mountain bike suspension systems. The fascination persists: “I ride my bike and wonder, who the heck built this? It drives me crazy. Every day, I think, how can I make this better?”
In his research and award-winning teaching, Wang’s emphasis is on applications. His biomechanics lab has conducted studies for a host of major companies and propelled improvements in the design of off-road bicycle tires, snowboard bindings, and helmets. Author of more than 50 papers, he currently is measuring rope loads in simulated rock-climbing falls, which remarkably has never been done before; standard tests drop dead weights from a tower, which tell nothing about the effects of friction, twisting, or other real-life situations. “You’ll die before it breaks,” says Wang. “To be a good designer, you have to know the parameters you’re designing for.” With his undergraduates, he employs gyroscopes, yo-yos, and other toys to help them understand dynamics and the “quirky,” real-life behavior of objects, and also advises UNR’s human-powered vehicle team.
As chair-elect for ASEE’s Council of Sections, Zone IV, Wang hopes to work on strengthening ties within the zone. He has time for this pursuit now. While he still climbs with his daughter and bikes with his son, he’s “too old to race.”
Stephanie Farrell
Adventurous Educator
A seasoned hiker, Stephanie Farrell has conquered many a mountain over the years. But the exhilarating, exhausting six-day scramble to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in 2012 – fulfilling a middle school dream – “definitely pushed my limits,” the New Jersey native recalls.
Wanting to “share some of this excitement” with her Rowan University students, Farrell, an associate professor of chemical engineering, began developing and incorporating course materials related to scaling Africa’s second-highest peak. “There are a lot of engineering principles involved in modeling the process of respiration,” she explains, noting that altitude changes and climates that range from tropical to arctic make the problem “even more interesting.” So do the headaches and other afflictions that climbers can suffer above 8,000 feet, which her party mercifully escaped by taking the long route up.
Farrell’s zest for real-world engineering education dates back to graduate school at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Though her doctoral research focused on drug delivery, she’d never seen a single example in any of her engineering courses. As an instructor, Farrell takes the opposite approach, trying to “excite students through experiential learning” and “interesting applications of engineering principles.” To convey core concepts and introduce students to the increasingly important role engineers play in solving biomedical problems, for example, she created hands-on experiments and materials involving drug delivery, artificial organs, and human physiology. One team even studied how astronauts’ legs atrophy in zero gravity.
Beyond the classroom, Farrell has conducted engineering education workshops in Egypt, China, Japan, Argentina, and throughout Europe. She has worked with Kazakhstan’s national university to improve quality, and last year, Farrell started a student exchange program that brought seven Kazakh scholars to study at Rowan and work in her lab.
“This is a very exciting time for engineering education, as it emerges as an independent discipline,” Farrell says. She expects to see more collaboration with cognitive scientists to improve instruction, and she’s thrilled to see engineering “become more accessible by creating flexible pathways toward degree completion.”
As first vice president and vice president, member affairs, Farrell has worked to increase the value of ASEE membership to constituents whose interests and needs differ widely. She also strives to be a role model, sharing her enthusiasm for ASEE and encouraging newer members to become the next generation of leaders.
Meet Your Staff
Low-Key, High-Tech Chief
“In many ways the IT department is often invisible. And this is a good thing, as it means the department is providing service that is efficient, reliable, and steady.”
While he’s exceptionally proud of the staff in his department, that’s about as much braggadocio as you’ll get from ASEE’s chief information officer, Keith Mounts. Unassuming and consistent are words that describe both Keith and his unit.
Keith has been one of the mainstays at ASEE headquarters, having joined the staff in 1995. He had originally applied for a software developer position but was told by the then executive director that he was overqualified for the job and instead was offered the role of management information systems manager. Keith has overseen his department’s growth into a unit that is key to supporting a large membership base, internal staff needs, and many aspects of ASEE’s robust fellowships management.
From a young age he had an interest in science and grew up close to agriculture and the ways of the natural world. His home in Indiana was so rural that “there was no town – I lived between towns.” His family had a vegetable garden and his father, a General Motors employee, owned an apple orchard that became a small-scale cider production facility in the fall. Word of mouth about his father’s dedication to quality and unique blend of apple varieties meant brisk sales to locals and many days for young Keith lost to coring and peeling and bottling. (Surprisingly, he still loves apple cider.)
From there it was on to Purdue. “I was very bad at high school chemistry, so I went with physics.” Upon graduation he went to work for Westinghouse Electric Corp. in Baltimore, where for years he honed computer programming skills, working on various avionics simulations, all on the software development side. After that, he came to ASEE.
Keith keeps some ties to his pastoral roots by living far outside the city, in upper Montgomery County, Maryland. There he and his wife are avid gardeners. He has a rose garden – his mother was from England, and she handed a love of the flower down to him – and a garden of perennials. For a number of years the couple have traveled each winter to the Philadelphia Flower Show, where they make a considerable investment preparing for the coming flowering season. Keith is also a photography hobbyist, maintaining a website dedicated to his floral and landscape shots and membership in his local art league.
When it comes to life at ASEE, Keith appreciates that IT has been allowed to run fairly autonomously. In addition, “IT has developed a culture that sets a high mark for hires, so we’ll take a lot of time to find the person at the right level that can integrate with everyone else.” Beyond providing a good service for members, “they make my job easy because they are so good at what they do.”
Engineering Technology Gains New Respect
By Miriam Heller
Can engineering technology programs help produce the 10,000 additional engineers that the White House has challenged higher education to graduate each year? That was the focus of the 38th Engineering Technology Leadership Institute (ETLI) on Oct. 4. Held for the first time in Washington, D.C., reflecting the elevation of engineering technology to the national level, the meeting drew more than 80 thought leaders from academia, government, industry, and nongovernmental organizations to explore the “Impact of the B.S. Engineering Technology Graduate on the U.S. Workforce.”
In his keynote address, ASEE President Ken Galloway detailed the similarities between engineering and engineering technology graduates, from their demographic makeup and faculty to ABET recognition, student outcomes, and employers. B.S. engineering technology graduates face unique hurdles, however. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has no Standard Occupation Code for engineering technology.
Change is on the horizon. Recent draft revisions of the federal classification and qualifications for engineers now include B.S. engineering technologists – opening job pathways, if approved. For instance, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers needs applied engineers and construction managers for its $5 billion-a-year effort to repair and secure critical infrastructure, noted Bruce Ware, chief of engineering management. In another sign of ET’s growing importance, the National Academy of Engineering has launched a study of two- and four-year ET programs, faculty development, partnerships with industry, and employer perceptions of ET preparedness.
New approaches to ET education include Ireland’s 10-level pathway from community college to doctorate, which yields high recruitment and retention and sends 60 percent of ET students on to earn engineering degrees, according to Mike Murphy, engineering dean at the Dublin Institute of Technology. Purdue has established a “technology education incubator,” the Polytechnic Institute. Gary Bertoline, dean of the College of Technology, described an Edison-inspired program that has ETs work directly with industry to integrate and spur innovation.
Think of ET as one of many pathways into engineering, suggested ASME’s director of education, Thomas Perry. That should generate new respect – and competitive candidates for the global workforce. ASEE supports multipronged efforts to raise the visibility of engineering technology, said Executive Director Norman Fortenberry.
All talks are available on YouTube by searching “ASEE ETLI 2013.”
Miriam Heller is ASEE’s director of council affairs.