2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The First AI+ Health & Humanoids Camp for Underrepresented Minority Middle School Girls in South Carolina (Work in Progress)

Presented at Minorities in Engineering Division(MIND) Technical Session 11

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the first AI+ Health and Humanoids Camp for underrepresented minority middle school girls in South Carolina hosted by the Artificial Intelligence, Algorithmic Integrity, Autonomy Innovation Center (AI3C) in the School of Engineering at The Citadel Military College. The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the camp to broaden the participation of underrepresented minority girls in STEM. The goal was to inspire underrepresented minority middle school girls to close the STEM gap in South Carolina by exposure to artificial intelligence (AI) and healthcare. In the summer of 2024, this camp hosted 16 middle school girls and one high school volunteer from 12 schools across three neighboring school districts in the Charleston area. A team of 11 professors, administrators, and volunteers facilitated the camp.
Campers responded positively to the culturally responsive curriculum. The curriculum highlighted AI awareness and ethics, programming AI-enabled humanoid robots, exposure to healthcare challenges, and the need for more STEM and biomedical professionals in South Carolina. The Education Commission of States found that South Carolina’s STEM pipeline failed students annually at every educational level [1]. The demand for a strong STEM workforce was expected to grow. However, there has been little to no growth in the student performance of math and science as reported in 2018 [1]. The quality of STEM teachers may be a key factor to the current state of the STEM pipeline in South Carolina.
With only 27% of 8th grade math teachers with an undergraduate degree in math, only 33% of science teachers with an undergraduate degree in science [1] and COVID-19 education deficits from 2020 still lingering, inspiring STEM experiences may be limited. In addition, minority students may have had the least amount of exposure to challenging concepts in math and science to create curiosity in STEM. Interventions such as STEM camps may positively influence an increase in STEM learning and interest.
The culturally responsive curriculum was strategic and an important aspect of the camp because studies confirm that self-perception can be a determining factor for underrepresented minority girls to join the STEM workforce [2]. Through the culturally responsive curriculum, over a third of the participants stated they learned something new about themselves of which they were proud. Campers met self-concept, AI and robotics, and social justice learning objectives through interactive teaching, workbook activities, crafts, videos, games, and research. The camp culminated with campers performing skits that originated from their research of healthcare issues they desired to solve.
This paper captures our reflections, details of implementation, lessons learned, evaluation results, and the effectiveness of exposing AI, robotics, and healthcare solutions to underrepresented minorities when presented within a culturally responsive curriculum.

Authors

Dr. Eva Theresa Singleton The Citadel Military College [biography]

Dr. Eva Singleton is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Leadership and Program Management (ELPM) at The Citadel Military College in Charleston, SC. As a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), she worked across diverse industries, including government contracting, manufacturing, entrepreneurial endeavors, and educational publishing.
Enthusiastic about sharing her expertise, Dr. Singleton is committed to helping individuals advance their careers, business, academic pursuits, and personal growth through project management principles, tools, and techniques. She believes project management is a lifestyle. Her research explores the intersection of project management with business, engineering and STEM, social sciences, and family and consumer sciences.
Beyond academia, she actively contributes to the project management community through event planning and mentoring aspiring project practitioners, volunteering to support STEM initiatives for the youth, and passionate about helping those in need.
Oguzhan Oruc http://orcid.org/0009-0005-4352-7755 The Citadel [biography]

Dr. Oguzhan Oruc received his B.S. and M.S. degrees
in mechanical engineering from Istanbul Technical
University, Istanbul, Turkey in 2005 and 2017,
respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in mechanical
engineering from the University of New Hampshire,
in 2018.
He is currently an Assistant Professor in the
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Citadel
Military College of South Carolina. His research
interests include nonlinear system identification,
modeling, simulation, and control system design for
underwater and surface vehicles, machine learning-based adaptive control, AIenabled
haptic devices in biomechanics.
Dr. Oruc’s specialization is System Dynamics and Control and System
Identification in particular. His studies involve nonlinear system identification
model-based control, and navigation and guidance of ocean vehicles.
Dr. Deirdre D Ragan Pennsylvania State University [biography]

Deirdre Ragan is an Associate Professor in Aerospace Engineering at Penn State University. She holds a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from Rice University as well as a M.S. and Ph.D. in Materials from the University of California Santa Barbara where she studied stresses in thin films. She previously developed nanoparticle-modified glass and automotive coatings (at PPG Industries, Inc.), conducted Raman spectroscopy of materials under static high pressure (at Los Alamos National Lab), studied the physics of electrochromic devices (at Uppsala University, Sweden), and taught science, math, and reading to 4-year-olds (at a Charleston preschool) before joining the faculty at The Citadel. She enjoys teaching upper-level undergraduate and graduate Engineering courses while mentoring and encouraging students to embrace their curiosity. Her interests include aerospace, materials, student engagement, and pedagogy.
Dr. Nahid Vesali P.E. The Citadel [biography]

Dr. Nahid Vesali is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Leadership and Program Management (ELPM) in the School of Engineering (SOE) at The Citadel. She joined the program in Aug 2020. She teaches project management, technical planning
Dr. Andrew B. Williams The Citadel [biography]

Andrew B. Williams, Ph.D. is the Dean of Engineering and the Louis S. LeTellier Chair at The Citadel School of Engineering. Dr. Williams is an alumni of the National Academy of Engineering Frontiers in Engineering Symposium and the National GEM Consortium Ph.D. in Engineering Program. He received both his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering with an emphasis in AI and his BSEE from the University of Kansas.

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

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Broadening Participation in Engineering and Engineering Technology
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