2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

An Ecosystem Analysis of Engineering Thriving with Emergent Properties at the Micro, Meso, and Macro Levels

Presented at Wellness, Readiness, and Thriving

This paper combines prior work on engineering thriving and complex systems science to provide an ecosystem model perspective with implications at the Micro, Meso, and Macro levels. Prior work on engineering thriving has largely focused on the Micro level (individual focus) and Meso level (organizations focus) with little focus on the Macro level (social institutions focus). This systematic literature review includes 29 peer reviewed papers selected from 6 journals and 11 conference papers across three databases. The result of this work includes two contributions. First, we provide a definition and indicators of thriving at each of three levels in the engineering education ecosystem. Engineering educators can use these definitions and indicators as a reference point for understanding thriving from an ecosystem perspective, informed by complex system science. Second, we examine the influence of thriving between levels of the system by considering thriving an emergent property of the Meso and Macro levels. Findings indicate that the speed of the dynamics for each level slows as each level becomes larger, with Micro level dynamics generally changing fastest, while Macro level dynamics generally changing slowest. In addition, the Meso level holds a unique role in influencing Micro and Macro levels by being the most “fragile” level most susceptible to intervention. Overall, this work lays the foundation for future work that seeks to identify specific strategies and high-impact interventions to increase thriving across multiple levels of engineering education ecosystems.

Authors

Dr. Julianna Gesun http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0084-951X Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University [biography]

Julianna Gesun, Ph.D., is currently a postdoctoral research scholar at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Her research broadly focuses on understanding and supporting the process by which engineering programs facilitate the environments for students to develop optimal functioning in undergraduate engineering programs. Her research interests intersect the fields of positive psychology, engineering education, and human development to understand the intrapersonal, cognitive, social, behavioral, contextual, cultural, and outcome factors that influence thriving in engineering.

Prior to joining Embry-Riddle, she was a National Science Foundation/American Society for Engineering Education engineering postdoctoral fellow at the University of New Hampshire. She received her Ph.D. in Engineering Education at Purdue University, where she was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and the winner of Purdue's 2021 Three Minute Thesis competition for her work in developing research and courses on engineering thriving. She also received dual bachelor's degrees in Industrial Engineering and Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her prior work experiences include product management, consulting, tutoring, marketing, and information technology.
Rachel Eve Gail Swan Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University [biography]

Rachel Swan is an undergraduate student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU). Since 2022 she has been an Undergraduate Research Assistant in the ERAU Wireless Devices and Electromagnetics Laboratory (WiDE Lab). She has also been an Undergraduate Research Assistant at the ERAU Biologically Inspired Design-for-Resilience (BID4R) Lab since 2023. Her research projects and interests include hardware security for RF applications and machine learning. She is a recipient of the ERAU's 2023 Outstanding Electrical Engineering Undergraduate Student Award and the United States Department of Defense SMART Scholarship.
Dr. Bryan Watson http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2222-6716 Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University [biography]

Bryan Watson, PE earned his Ph.D. at the Georgia Institute of Technology and his B.S. in Systems Engineering at the United States Naval Academy in 2009. After graduating, Bryan joined the nuclear Navy, serving as a submarine officer onboard the U.S.S Louisville and at the Naval Prototype Training Unit from 2009-2017. Significant milestones include earning the Master Training Specialist Certification (the military’s highest instructor accreditation), Nuclear Professional Engineer Certification, two Naval Achievement Medals, the Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal, and a Naval Commendation Medal for his work troubleshooting and repairing the Moored Training Ship 635’s reactor and electrical distribution faults. Following his transition from active duty, Bryan earned his PhD as a member of both the Computation and Advancement of Sustainable Systems Lab, where he developed a new method for distributed system demand estimation, and at the Sustainable Design and Manufacturing lab, where his work focused on increasing System of System resilience. Bryan’s work has been published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology, Journal of Mechanical Design, and IEEE’s Systems Journal.

At Embry-Riddle, Bryan’s current work is focused on investigating the use of biologically inspired design to increase the resilience of modern system. The goal of their work is more reliable services to users, increased user safety, and increased sustainability for connected manufacturing, energy, and infrastructure systems.

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