2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Translational Engineering Education: A New Paradigm for Preparing Next-Generation Engineers for the 21st Century Workforce

Presented at Faculty Development Division (FDD) Technical Session 9

This theory paper introduces translational engineering education (TEE), the concept of supporting students as they translate the education they receive into valuable real-world skills and practices as engineers. Traditionally, scientific discoveries—especially in medicine and biology—were translated to practice, providing societal benefit. Recently, the idea has expanded to encompass computer science, business, and even education, serving to define the process of applying theory and abstract concepts to producing imminently useful skills in solving practical problems. This ability is intrinsically implied in engineering, as the discipline is, by definition, a translational one. However, there are benefits in clearly defining a formal framework of TEE in the context of higher education. Without such a framework, engineering curricula are often defined ad hoc and on the basis of tradition, forming pedagogical gaps in translational training that students end up having to overcome later while on the job, putting them at a disadvantage in a globally competitive workforce. We define a framework for the process of translating engineering education to practice with TEE five stages: (T0) foundational knowledge; (T1) translation to theory; (T2) translation to projects; (T3) translation to practice; (T4) translation to community. These stages are anchored in established educational theories, such as the experiential learning framework and Bloom's taxonomy, providing a grounded approach to understanding and implementing TEE. We illustrate the utility of this definition with examples from our engineering program, showing how it can guide the assessment and enhancement of course offerings to better equip students with the practical skills and knowledge they need. Furthermore, we discuss how engineering programs and their leaders can use our TEE framework to align their curricula with the demands of emerging technologies and market trends, ensuring that graduates are prepared for the future of the industry. This paper aims to redefine engineering education, offering a new lens through which universities, department chairs, and faculty can prepare, evaluate, and train engineers for the challenges of the 21st century.

Authors

Dr. Phuong Truong http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0420-4575 University of California, San Diego [biography]

Phuong Truong is a Lecturer and Staff Research Associate at UC San Diego and an Engineering Adjunct Faculty at the San Diego Mesa College. She received her B.S. (2016) in structural engineering, M.S. (2018) in mechanical engineering, and Ph.D. (2023) in mechanical engineering from Jacobs School of Engineering. Her primary education research interests include experiential learning, holistic modeling, and active learning practices. In the last decade, she has dedicated her education efforts towards developing new experiential learning curriculum, creating preparation programs to address opportunity gaps, and enhancing involvement of student organizations in engineering education. Her academic research interest includes include sensing, sensors, soft materials, wearable sensors, and remote health monitoring/devices, where she has spent the last seven years developing thin-film optical pressure sensors and infant feeding dysfunction diagnostic devices.
Prof. Truong Nguyen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5022-063X University of California, San Diego [biography]

Truong Q. Nguyen received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, in 1985, 1986 and 1989, respectively. He was with MIT Lincoln Laboratory from June 1989 to July 1994, as a member of technical staff. During the academic year 1993-94, he was a visiting lecturer at MIT and an adjunct professor at Northeastern University. From August 1994 to July 1998, he was with the ECE Dept., University of Wisconsin, Madison. He was with Boston University from August 1996 to June 2001. He is currently a Distinguished Professor with the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department, UC San Diego.

His current research interests are 3D video processing, machine learning with applications in health monitoring/analysis and 3D modelling. He is the coauthor (with Prof. Gilbert Strang) of a popular textbook, Wavelets & Filter Banks, Wellesley-Cambridge Press, 1997, and the author of several matlab-based toolboxes on image compression, electrocardiogram compression and filter bank design. He also holds a patent on an efficient design method for wavelets and filter banks and several patents on wavelet applications including compression and signal analysis.

He received the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Transaction in Signal Processing Paper Award (Image and Multidimensional Processing area) for the paper he co-wrote with Prof. P. P. Vaidyanathan on linear-phase perfect-reconstruction filter banks (1992). He received the National Science Foundation Career Award in 1995 and is an IEEE Fellow (2005). He received the Distinguished Teaching Award at UC San Diego in 2019. He served as Associate Editor for IEEE Transaction on Signal Processing, Signal Processing Letters, IEEE Transaction on Circuits & Systems, and IEEE Transaction on Image Processing. See his research publication at Google Scholar.

Prof. Nguyen is passionate about teaching and mentorship, creating initiatives that prepare students for career success. During his term as ECE department chair, with the help of faculty and students, he spearheaded the Hands-on curriculum, Summer Research Internship Program (SRIP), and the Summer Internship Prep Program (SIPP). He also co-created the Project-in-a-Box (PIB) student organization that brings hands-on curriculum to K-12 students. He is the Co-PI of an NSF grant to develop an engineering program consisting of hands-on technical curriculum at Imperial Valley College. He also collaborated with the Inclusive Engineering Consortium (IEC) on developing a graduate pathways program.
Prof. James Friend http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0416-2165 University of California, San Diego [biography]

James Friend leads the Medically Advanced Devices Laboratory in the Center for Medical Devices at the University of California, San Diego. He holds the Stanford S. and Beverly P. Penner Endowed Chair in Engineering and is a professor in both the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Jacobs School of Engineering and the Department of Surgery, School of Medicine. He spent 14 years abroad as a faculty member in Japan and Australia before returning to the US. His research interests are principally in exploring and exploiting acoustic phenomena at small scales, mainly for biomedical applications. He currently supervises a team of 7 PhD students and one post-doctoral staff member. Over the years, he has published over 280 peer-reviewed research publications (H-factor = 58) and has 29 granted patents, completed 36 postgraduate students and supervised 23 postdoctoral staff, and been awarded over $32 million in competitive grant-based research funding. He most recently helped found Arna Systems, a diagnostics company, GlideNeuro, an endovascular intervention technology company, and Sonocharge, a rapidly rechargeable battery company which has grown to a valuation of $54M. Among other awards, he received UCSD's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2021, was noted as a highly cited author of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2020, is a Fellow of the IEEE from 2018 and was awarded the IEEE Carl Hellmuth Hertz Ultrasonics Award from the IEEE in 2015.
Dr. Alex M. Phan http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2489-2886 University of California, San Diego [biography]

Dr. Alex Phan is the inaugural Executive Director for Student Success in the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego. Prior to his appointment, he has served as an engineering instructor teaching across multiple divisions, including the Jacobs School of Engineering (Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Dept. of Mechanical and Aerospace Eng., Dean's Office Unit) and UC San Diego Division of Extended Studies. His teaching interests and expertise are in experiential learning, holistic education models, active learning environments, and metacognition. In his current role, he leads the IDEA Student Center, a prolific student-centered resource hub at the Jacobs School that serves as a model for student success units across the country.

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