2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This interactive poster will encourage audience members to review and provide feedback for a preliminary model and framework for integrating humanitarian efforts into engineering education for the purpose of creating inclusive engineers. The model and framework are the culminating work of an NSF RIEF-funded project focused on understanding the impacts of humanitarian engineering projects on student professional formation and views of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The project has included both quantitative methods through a survey and qualitative methods through interviews for a robust mixed method study to uncover these connections and impacts. From the surveys, the researchers found a lack of self-selection bias toward professional responsibility by those involved in humanitarian engineering projects. Additionally, the surveys found some differences in enacting inclusive behaviors across demographics like age and representation within the field. The interviews also produced interesting results, specifically two students whose experiences with inclusive behaviors were unexpected based on their identities - the student from an underrepresented background (veteran, mixed race) overcame bias toward teammates whereas the traditional white male student experienced inclusion. In addition to these narratives, the research team performed coding and thematic analysis of 23 interviews to better understand the connections between involvement in humanitarian engineering and enacting inclusive behaviors. From the results, a preliminary model and framework for creating inclusive engineers through humanitarian engineering was developed. The preliminary model is presented as a Venn diagram with three parts: technical abilities (traditionally taught in engineering), professional skills (only recently taught in engineering), and social and behavioral qualities (rarely taught in engineering). The research team proposes that while typical engineering projects tend to provide formation in technical abilities and professional skills, an emphasis on humanitarianism (at the center of the Venn diagram) can support development of crucial social and behavioral qualities like respect, humility, and empathy. Developing these qualities, though unexpected in most engineering programs and uncomfortable for many faculty, could be a key to creating more inclusive engineers. The model and framework will be the primary focus of the poster to encourage collaboration and interaction with the audience.