2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Trickle Down Engineering

Presented at Liberal Education/Engineering & Society Division (LEES) Technical Session 1

In much the same way that trickle-down economics posits that enriching those at the top will eventually benefit society as a whole, professional education policy—particularly in engineering—has long adopted a supply-side framework. This approach assumes that simply increasing the number of trained professionals will inevitably lead to societal benefits, economic growth, and innovation. But just as critics of trickle-down economics highlight its failure to address structural inequality or ensure broad prosperity, the supply-side logic in education often overlooks issues of equity, distribution, and contextual need. Engineering education, for instance, tends to emphasize producing more graduates rather than aligning graduates’ capabilities with the actual demands of underserved communities, evolving technological systems, or long-term sustainability. This results in an oversupply in some disciplines (e.g., mechanical engineering) and shortages in others (e.g., electrical and civil engineering), while marginalizing pathways that center public interest technology or community-responsive design. Moreover, this model incentivizes credentialism and prestige rather than societal alignment, replicating elite access and reinforcing stratified labor markets. As with trickle-down policies, the underlying assumption is that societal benefit will eventually "drip" from high-skill, high-wage professions outward. Yet this ignores the role of demand-side planning, institutional accountability, and structural incentives that shape where and how professionals actually contribute. Rethinking engineering education policy through this lens suggests a need to shift from simply growing supply to cultivating distributed opportunities for meaningful impact—especially for students whose aspirations are oriented toward service, justice, or systemic change.

Authors

Dr. Alan Cheville Bucknell University [biography]

Alan Cheville studied optoelectronics and ultrafast optics at Rice University, followed by fourteen years as a faculty member at Oklahoma State University working on terahertz frequencies and engineering education. While at Oklahoma State he developed courses in photonics and engineering design. After serving for two and a half years as a program director in engineering education at the National Science Foundation, he took a position in electrical & computer engineering at Bucknell University. He is currently interested in engineering design education, engineering education policy, and the philosophy of engineering education.
Dr. Stewart Thomas http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5554-1475 Bucknell University [biography]

Stewart J. Thomas received the B.S. and M.Eng. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky in 2006 and 2008, respectively, and the Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina in 2013. He has served on the organizing committee for the IEEE International Conference on RFID series since 2014, serving as the Executive Chair in 2022, with research interests in areas of low-power backscatter communications systems and IoT devices. He is also interested in capabilities-based frameworks for supporting engineering education. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Bucknell University in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Lewisburg, PA USA.
Sarah Appelhans http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7313-3504 Lafayette College [biography]

Sarah Appelhans is an Assistant Professor of Engineering Studies at Lafayette College. She earned her PhD in Cultural Anthropology at the University at Albany (SUNY) where she conducted research on the cultural factors that contribute to inequalities in engineering. As a postdoc at Bucknell University, she was the resident ethnographer in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, exploring applications of Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach in engineering education. Her current book project, On the Bleeding Edge: Gender, Immigration and Precarity in Semiconductor Engineering, investigates the intersections of gender, race/ethnicity, and immigration status among semiconductor engineers.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 21, 2026, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 24, 2026

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