2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Diversity Index: A New Perspective on Engineering Capstone Projects

Presented at Diversity Trainings, Inclusive Learning, and Distance Learning

Capstone courses in engineering usually lead to projects where student teams show their skills at providing engineering solutions for realistic problems, making use of the knowledge and training acquired through the entire college curriculum, and demonstrating student readiness to enter the job market or moving into research. These projects are often displayed at venues where judges from academia and industry conduct evaluations to assess those achievements. Grading rubrics are generally based on the engineering approach, ability to reach a solution, specific design content, innovation, team performance, and presentation and communication skills. It has become popular that these showcases turn into competitions, with prizes and recognitions awarded to selected projects. In this study, we took an additional perspective on these capstone courses and events by analyzing the composition of these teams in terms of diversity and the potential impact of this factor in the performance and results. We took occasion of a large presentation of over 100 capstones projects by the Class of 2022 at the University of [blank], with the participation of more than 500 senior students, to assess the diversity of teams across the various departments of the School of Engineering. An additional population of almost 100 senior students from a department that does not participate in the event but with a comparable capstone project was also included in the study. The evaluation of the projects was conducted by instructors and expert judges from industry and academia. Trends were examined between performance grades versus a diversity index, which metrics and characteristics were previously reported. The diversity of the self-selected team members (most commonly 4-6), as measured by this diversity index, reveals a marked trend to decreasing the diversity of the former group (i.e., class, course), exposing some probable implicit biases on identity. Some other results show how diversity impacts team performance differently depending on the prevalent characteristic of the group. The analysis provided in this paper offers criteria and methodology applicable to institutions and situations to quantitatively assess diversity that can lead to practical guidelines and even policies.

Authors

Dr. Joaquin Rodriguez http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7238-4774 University of Pittsburgh [biography]

Joaquin Rodriguez has been an Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh since 2018. He received his bachelor degree in Chemical Engineering from Universidad Simon Bolivar (Caracas, Venezuela), MSc. and PhD in the same discipline from the University of Pittsburgh. He developed his expertise in thermal cracking processes and advanced materials (needle coke, carbon fibers) from oil residues, and became business leader for specialty products at the Research Center of Petroleos de Venezuela PDVSA (1983-1998). He is a founding member of Universidad Monteavila (Caracas, Venezuela) (1998—2018), became the Chancellor of this university (2005-2015), and the President of the Center for Higher Studies (2015-2018), where he also taught courses on the humanities. After rejoining the University of Pittsburgh, he has been teaching Pillar courses on Reactive Process Engineering, Process Control, Process Control Laboratory, and Process Design. In addition to technical courses, his service extends to engineering education, curriculum development, outreach programs, global awareness, sustainability, and diversity, equity and inclusion.
Dr. April Dukes http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6626-9331 University of Pittsburgh [biography]

April Dukes (aprila@pitt.edu) is the Faculty and Future Faculty Program Director for the Engineering Educational Research Center (EERC) and the Institutional Co-leader for Pitt-CIRTL (Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning) at the
John Andrew Keith University of Pittsburgh [biography]

John A. Keith is an Associate Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) and an R.K. Mellon Faculty Fellow in Energy. Before arriving at Pitt in 2013, he received bachelors and PhD degrees in chemistry from Wesleyan University (in 2001) and Caltech (in 2007), respectively. He was also an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow at the University of Ulm (Germany, 2007-2010) and then an Associate Research Scholar at Princeton (2010-2013). His group's research interests are in development and application of computational chemistry toward basic and applied studies for renewable energy and sustainability, and in 2017 he received and NSF-CAREER award. He also has interests in curriculum development for enhancing access to engineering curricula, and he currently serves on his school-wide DEI advisory committee.
Dr. David V.P. Sanchez http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7398-3130 University of Pittsburgh [biography]

David V.P. Sanchez is an Associate Professor in the Swanson School of Engineering’s Civil & Environmental Engineering department and the Associate Director for the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation at the University of Pittsburgh. He serves as the Program Director for the Master’s in Sustainable Engineering, the Undergraduate Certificate in Sustainability, the John C. Mascaro Faculty Fellows, and the Sustainability Global Engagement grant. He is the faculty lead for the University Honors College Food Ecosystem Scholar Community.

His research lab, Sustainable Design Labs, focuses on fusing analytical chemistry, sustainability design principles and data analytics to address Water and Sustainability grand challenges. Current thrusts focus on Smarter Riversheds, Microbial Fuel cells and advanced oxidation and separation processes.

Focused on co-creating long term partnerships that synergize community vision with Pitt’s core competencies of research and education, Sanchez has built up Pitt Hydroponics in Homewood, founded Constellation Energy Inventor labs for K-12 students, and re-created the Mascaro Center’s Teach the Teacher sustainability program for science educators in the region.

As a teacher he designed and created the Sustainability capstone course which has annually partnered with community stakeholders to address sustainability challenges at all scales. Past projects have included evaluating composting stations in Wilkinsburg, studying infrastructure resilience in Homewood, enabling community solar in PA, improving energy efficiency in McCandless Township, and improving water quality in our rivers. He teaches core Sustainability courses, labs in the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department, electives in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship program, the First-Year Engineering program, and International Study Abroad programs.

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