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Session Description

Free ticketed event
The NSF Professional Formation of Engineers Research Initiation in Engineering Formation (PFE: RIEF) provides an excellent funding opportunity for engineering faculty members with little to no experience in engineering education research to work with an experienced mentor on a funded project.
This session will:
- Review the RIEF solicitation and explain criteria specific for the solicitation.
- Identify strengths of funded RIEF proposals.
- Identify resources for developing project budget and writing an effective PI mentoring plan.
- Identify strategies to find potential mentors after the session.
The workshop’s highly interactive structure is combined with tangible resources for prospective PIs, such as a sample PI mentoring plan, lists of questions to consider when developing their own, and information about developing a project budget. Participants will be able to network with potential mentors during the workshop.

Speakers

1. Dr. Kelly J Cross

   Georgia Institute of Technology

   Dr. Kelly J. Cross, Assistant Professor in the biomedical Engineering department at Georgia Tech, is a data-informed, transformational mission-focused culturally responsive practitioner, researcher, and educational leader. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University in 2007 and a Master of Science in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Cincinnati in 2011. Cross completed her doctoral program in the Engineering Education department at Virginia Tech in 2015 and worked as a post-doctoral researcher with the Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). At the Department of Bioengineering, Dr. Cross worked to redesign the curriculum through the NSF-funded Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) grant. She is a member of the ASEE Leadership Virtual Community of Practice (LVCP) which organizes and facilitates Safe Zone Training workshops. Dr. Cross has conducted workshops on managing personal bias in STEM, online and in-person, in addition to faculty training on power and privilege. Her research interests include diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM, intersectionality, teamwork and communication skills, assessment, and identity construction. Her teaching philosophy focuses on student-centered approaches such as problem-based learning and culturally relevant pedagogy. Dr. Cross’ complimentary professional activities promote inclusive excellence through collaboration. She is an NSF CAREER awardee, delivered multiple distinguished lectures, and has received a national mentoring award.

2. Dr. Julie P Martin

   University of Georgia

   Julie P. Martin’s professional mission is to create environments that elevate and expand the research community. She is the Assistant Vice President for Talent and Team Development in the Office of Knowledge Enterprise where she supports faculty from across the university faculty develop the skills and confidence to work on and lead interdisciplinary research teams.

   She is a former National Science Foundation (NSF) program director in the Engineering Education and Centers Division (Directorate for Engineering). In that role, she managed a $20M annual budget and a portfolio of about 250 active engineering education awards. While at NSF, she was on the writing team for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s Five-Year Federal STEM Education Strategic Plan ‘‘Charting a Course for Success: America’s Strategy for Stem Education for the US Government,’’ published in 2018.

   Dr. Martin is well-known for her NSF CAREER-sponsored work operationalizing social capital for engineering education. More recently, she has encouraged the engineering education research community to embrace methodological activism, a paradigm whereby researchers intentionally leverage research methods for the political purpose of empowering marginalized participants and communities. As the editor-in-chief of Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, Dr. Martin’s vision is to create a culture of constructive peer review in academic publishing.

   Dr. Martin is a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education. She holds a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Virginia Tech and a bachelor’s degree in the same field from North Carolina State University.

   Learn more about her research team, Elevate, at juliepmartin.com.

3. Isabel Miller

   University of Michigan

   Isabel is a PhD student in Engineering Education at the University of Michigan. She is a NSF Graduate Research Fellow.

4. Ms. Deepthi Suresh

   Deepthi is a PhD student in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan

5. Dr. Karin Jensen

   University of Michigan

   Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan