2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 144: Work-in-Progress: A Course Collaboration Between Chemical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering

Presented at Multidisciplinary Engineering Division (MULTI) Poster Session

Many US institutions have adopted the First Year Engineering (FYE) program model in which students majoring in engineering and computer sciences study in the same classroom for a year. The FYE program facilitates the transitions between majors for undecided students and aims to promote collaboration among peers in their introductory courses. These interdisciplinary interactions are unfortunately often limited as students move to upper-class courses. In the Paducah Campus at the University of Kentucky we identified an additional opportunity for a collaborative course in Fluid Mechanics. The fluid mechanics course is taken by both chemical engineers (ChE) and mechanical engineers (ME). In the past years, we revealed that combining cohorts of students is not ideal as the emphasis given in the course can be different from one major to another. We hypothesize that collaboration on certain dates and specific assignments, however, could enhance the perception of multidisciplinary collaboration which is common in the workplace. This project aims to develop and sustain this collaboration between lecturers from mechanical and chemical engineering. The project consists of 1) a one-time lecture on a topic of interest to either the ME or CME professor to the opposite major group; 2) collaboration in projects and assignments in fluid mechanics. We have applied the proposed changes in the Fall of 2023 and will compare it to the data collected prior to any interaction to those after the interaction. Concept maps were used as an assessment tool to determine how much of the multidisciplinary collaboration among concepts and the different interactions with other majors broadened the map.

Authors

Ms. Malgorzata Chwatko University of Kentucky [biography]

Malgorzata (Gosia) Chwatko is an assistant professor in chemical engineering. She has gotten her Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin.
Dr. Hari Charan Ghimire University of Kentucky
Huayi Li University of Kentucky
Dr. Madhav Baral University of Kentucky [biography]

Dr. Baral is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Kentucky (UK) - Paducah campus. Before joining UK, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the John Olson Advanced Manufacturing Center at University of New Hampshire. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from University of New Hampshire
Dr. John Franklin Maddox [biography]

Dr.
John F. Maddox
is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University
of Kentucky, Paducah Campus. He received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from
Auburn University in 2015. His primary research areas are thermal managemen
Hyun-Tae Hwang University of Kentucky
Dr. Gisella R Lamas Samanamud http://orcid.org/https://0000-0001-9907-4381 University of Kentucky [biography]

Dr. Gisella Lamas is a Brazilian/Peruvian environmental engineer. She works as a Lecturer in Chemical Engineering at the University of Kentucky – Paducah. She is a visiting scholar at the graduate school of UFSJ – Brazil. Her technical research experience focuses on water and wastewater treatment, statistical methods and biofilms applied to engineering. She also studies the application of SoTL to the chemical engineering curriculum. She is passionate about DEIB, outreach opportunities and mentoring. She has been awarded the 2022 Engaged advocate award. She has completed the Global Diplomacy Initiative course from UNITAR and she is a STEM PEER academy fellow 2023.

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