2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Challenging the Engineering Egosystem: Reimagining Knowledge and Advancing Epistemic Justice

This paper critiques the epistemic injustice inherent in traditional engineering and engineering education, where rigid epistemic boundaries marginalize alternative ways of knowing. Engineering’s dominant status in the knowledge hierarchy—rooted in technical problem-solving, technological change, and value-neutrality—has fostered an “engineering egosystem” reinforcing epistemic exclusion. This egosystem prioritizes self-preservation over interconnectedness, undervaluing diverse knowledge forms and perpetuating epistemic hierarchies favoring scientific and technical disciplines.
I propose shifting from an egosystemic to an ecosystemic approach to engineering knowledge to address this phenomenon. This approach dismantles rigid boundaries by fostering interdisciplinarity, intersectionality, and transdisciplinarity and integrating multicultural perspectives into engineering education. This paper advocates for embedding interconnectedness, compassion, humility, and openness within engineering practices to promote epistemic justice. By doing so, engineering education can become more inclusive and socially responsive, addressing real-world challenges through more diverse and equitable knowledge systems.
This call to action underscores the need for policy reforms and transformative learning experiences that challenge dominant epistemologies and promote social innovation. By integrating marginalized voices and recognizing the relational nature of knowledge, epistemic justice offers a framework for reshaping engineering education and practice to reflect global communities' diverse realities and needs.

Authors

Dr. Cristian Eduardo Vargas-Ordonez http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7979-3901 South Dakota School of Mines and Technology [biography]

Cristian Vargas-Ordonez is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the South Dakota School of Mines. He has a Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Purdue University, a Master in Education from the University of Los Andes in Colombia and a Master in Science, Technology, and Society from the National University of Quilmes in Argentina.
Mr. Hector Enrique Rodríguez-Simmonds http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4417-1859 Purdue Engineering Education [biography]

Héctor was born in Mexico and raised in South Florida. He's half Colombian and half Mexican; proud Mexilombian. Héctor E. Rodríguez-Simmonds is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Human-Centered Engineering at Boston College. Before receiving his Ph.D. in Engineering Education, he earned his master's degree in electrical and computer engineering. Héctor's research primarily investigates how students negotiate their visible and less visible identities as they form their professional identity, specifically at the intersection of their racial/ethnic, sexual orientation, gender, and engineering identities. Héctor’s research projects range from autoethnographic inquiries that investigate culturally informed collaborative qualitative research spaces, neurodivergence and disability in engineering, and examining the structural factors that impact student experiences in computer engineering courses. Héctor has taught various engineering courses and is invested in showing learners he cares about them and their future success. He creates a space where learners can feel safe to experiment, iterate, and try different problem-solving approaches while encouraging learners to be critical of their professional practice so they create effective, holistic solutions that work for a broader range of individuals.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025