2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Modern industry and startups, particularly in high-tech sectors, show significant growth of cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural, and cross-boundary work needs. Some cross-disciplinary areas with particular demand, now and for the future, are found at the intersection between engineering and the life sciences. Engineers increasingly need competencies in life science areas that intersect with their engineering disciplines. Engineers also must meet high-tech industry requirements of working cross-culturally, communicating effectively with all teams across the enterprise, and effectively using time and project management skills. For STEM-specific roles, young engineers are required to have data science understanding, statistics knowledge, and computational capability especially if working with big data. In response, higher education institutions (HEI) have started matching such industry needs. HEIs are initiating having students work across boundaries of sector, discipline, and identity. Students are being prepared for intersectoral collaboration and multiple career pathways in a workforce that will change more rapidly in coming years. Students are enabled to join multidisciplinary teams with people who approach problems with different methods and knowledge, and to solve problems in diverse groups in terms of culture, race/ethnicity/nationality, gender or socioeconomic status.

The International Research Experience for Students (IRES) program of NSF contributes to development of a diverse, globally engaged higher education workforce with world-class skills. Within this program, Virginia Tech (VT) in the United States, with support from the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), has developed a transdisciplinary, international education program in the area of bioinspired engineering. IRES graduate-level scholars from multiple fields study autonomous mobility in complex natural environments, through observation and analysis of flying/gliding rainforest animals, with the help of an interdisciplinary mentor network in Brunei, South Korea, and Singapore. So far, a single cohort of students from engineering, biology, and biophysics has completed the program in 2022. The first results show students undergo a transformative process through their interdisciplinary and international research experience in the areas of biology and engineering.

The program implements a novel paradigm to bring scholars international research experiences in STEM, especially in bio-oriented environments, in line with the need for solving transdisciplinary challenges through global collaboration and the trend towards personalized learning. To achieve this, the program introduces the following key elements to international research experiences and combines them in a novel manner: (i) focus on research-related professional development experiences that are well integrated into the IRES scholars' thesis research, (ii) leveraging of a combination of natural and academic resources in a variety of sociocultural settings, (iii) a mentor network offering students the opportunity to work with multiple mentors, selected according to students’ needs at different program stages, (iv) a modular, customizable approach to paths and schedules for individualized research experiences, (v) pervasive use of a social media many-to-many communication model to ensure coherence within each student cohort and its scientific and social communities, and (vi) constant engagement of students and mentors to accomplish professional development goals. By doing so, the program will further international collaboration, intercultural understanding, and exchange in bioinspired research.