2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Impact of Computation in Undergraduate Curriculum : Alumni Perspective

Presented at Materials Division (MATS) Technical Session 1

Computational methods have gained importance and popularity in both academic research and industrial applications in recent years. Since 2014, our team has consistently worked on reforming our Materials Science and Engineering curriculum by incorporating computational modules into all mandatory undergraduate courses. Our previous research revealed positive results of this reform, as students show increased confidence levels and satisfaction with computational tools and their application to materials science problems. We believe that the time is ripe to enlarge the scope of our research beyond our current students. Here we seek to investigate the impact of computational modules on our alumni. We surveyed the alumni that graduated in the last 10 years and asked them about the benefits of computational materials on their career. We were specifically interested in whether the alumni think that the computational materials have created extra opportunities for them in the job market and whether they were helpful in performing better at their job. We have also investigated how often and which computational tools they were using for their job. With the results of our survey, we hope to get a better understanding of the current needs of materials science graduates in industry regarding computational skills. We think that the perspective provided by the alumni can serve as a guide on reshaping the computational modules and their weight in our undergraduate curriculum.

Authors

B. Ruşen Argun University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign [biography]

Ruşen is a Ph.D. student in the department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the computational teaching assistant of the Materials Science and Engineering department for academic year 2022-2023, and participated in the teaching activities about computations in several undergraduate courses. His research is about coarse-grained simulations of soft materials. He enjoys sailing when the weather is nice.
Prof. Andre Schleife [biography]

AndrÃ© Schleife is a Blue Waters Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He obtained his Diploma and Ph.D. at Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena, Germany for his theo
Dr. Cecilia Leal [biography]

CecÃlia Leal is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign since 2012. She graduated in Industrial Chemistry from Coi
Prof. Dallas R. Trinkle University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign [biography]

Dallas R. Trinkle is an associate professor in Materials Science and Engineering at Univ. Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Ohio State University in 2003. Following his time as a National Research Council postdoctoral resea
Prof. Nicola H. Perry University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign [biography]

Nicola Perry has been an assistant professor in Materials Science and Engineering at UIUC since 2018. She received her PhD degree in the same field from Northwestern University (NU) in 2009 and subsequently held postdoctoral positions at NU, Kyushu University (Japan), and MIT. Prior to joining the faculty at UIUC she was a World Premier Initiative assistant professor in the International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research at Kyushu University and a research affiliate at MIT. Her research focuses on design and discovery of point-defect mediated active behavior in solid-state ionic materials for high- and low-temperature energy conversion and storage applications. Her teaching encompasses functional ceramics (senior-level class), solid-state ionics (graduate-level class), and phases and phase relations (sophomore-level class). She continues to support the incorporation of diverse computational modules in her courses. She is also active in educational outreach to middle-school and high-school students as well as the broader community on the topics of materials for sustainability, electrochemistry, and energy conversion, developing and leading interactive lessons and hands-on demos.
Prof. Jessica Krogstad http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0628-0501 University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign [biography]

Jessica A. Krogstad is an associate professor in the Department of Material Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She received her PhD in Materials at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2012. Between 2012 and 2014, she held a postdoctoral appointment in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Her current research explores the interplay between phase or morphological evolution and material functionality in structural materials under extreme conditions. She also maintains interest in engineering education, specifically in outreach and design thinking.
Dr. Matthew D. Goodman University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign [biography]

Dr. Goodman received degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from Iowa State (B.S. & M.S.) and the University of Illinois (Ph.D.). He is a lecturer in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at University of Illinois since 2014. Since 2023, he has also been a Siebel Center for Design Affiliate, utilizing Human-Centered Design in the Materials Science and Engineering Capstone courses.
Antonia Statt
Marie Agathe Charpagne

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