2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This paper proposes a conceptual and applied framework that positions love—and its interrelated dimensions of empathy, compassion, care, and ethical action—as foundational to engineering education. It challenges dominant capitalist, technocratic, and human-centered design paradigms by arguing that engineering must expand beyond technical problem-solving to include emotional, ethical, and relational dimensions. Drawing on neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and history, the paper conceptualizes love as a mode of knowing and a design-oriented practice that fosters ethical reasoning, self-awareness, and relational responsibility. It looks at love as an important motivation in ethical reasoning on technological ethics, expanding students' frameworks for addressing complex design challenges. Situated within Western engineering education in the United States, the study introduces a transdisciplinary framework and holistic design thinking methodology that centers love not only as a pedagogical stance but as a subject of study. The framework is applied and examined in secondary and postsecondary classrooms to explore how engaging with love informs students’ ethical understanding, ecological awareness, and collaborative design practices. This approach reframes engineering education as a site for cultivating more-than-human care, emotional intelligence, and ethical attunement—equipping students to navigate the complexities of technological development with greater depth, reflection, and responsibility.