2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Work-in-Progress: Building a Sustainability Focused Research Graduate Program for Chemical Engineering Graduate Students

Presented at WIP: Applied Chemical Engineering & Sustainability

Embedding sustainability into chemical engineering research and education is essential to ensure that the innovations driving today’s industries also preserve environmental, economic, and social resources for future generations. In an effort to meet this need, Rowan University developed a graduate program intervention with emphasis on sustainability research that strives to better prepare their graduate students for careers related to sustainability in either industry or academia. The intervention program focuses on providing doctoral students with guided mentorship on sustainability-focused research, an enhanced curriculum that integrates sustainability into core chemical engineering topics, opportunities to serve as leaders overseeing undergraduate research and/or K-12 outreach initiatives, and scaffolded training in best practices for teaching.

To assess the impact of the newly initiated graduate student intervention program, graduate students will be asked to evaluate the level of support they receive (instrumental, psychosocial, professional network, and friend and family) and provide yearly assessments of their identity and level of persistence relevant to a career in engineering. These results will be compared with baseline measures obtained at the start of the intervention program. Alongside these quantitative survey measures, students are also asked to complete a career based reflection modeled after the Motivating INformed Decisions (MINDs) program that was run at the University of California San Francisco. The career reflection encourages students to first evaluate their skillsets and areas of interests before mapping these to potential career pathways. Graduate students are then encouraged to spend the next year investigating the identified career pathways to determine if they are a good fit for continued pursuit or they should re-evaluate and look at other alternatives. This process will enable graduate students to build a list of potential career prospects to pursue upon completion of their degree program.

This work-in-progress paper will provide more details on the development of the sustainability focused graduate intervention program as well as the baseline measures of support, identity, and persistence reported by the incoming graduate program cohort.

Authors

Tristan Letizia Rowan University
Rebecca Spirer Rowan University
Dr. Andrea J Vernengo Rowan University [biography]

Dr. Andrea Vernengo is an Associate Professor with dual appointments in the departments of chemical engineering and biomedical engineering at Rowan University. She earned her bachelor's degree from Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 2003 and completed her Ph.D. at the same institution in 2007. Her research centers on biomaterials, biofabrication, and tissue engineering, with a translational emphasis on developing cell‐inspired therapeutics. She is also engaged in biomedical engineering pedagogy, integrating entrepreneurial mindset, experiential learning, and real-world problem framing into her teaching and program development.
Dr. Juan M Cruz http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7426-682X Rowan University [biography]

Juan M. Cruz is an assistant professor in the Experiential Engineering Education Department at Rowan University. He has a B.S. in Electronic Engineering and a Masters in Education from Universidad Javeriana in Colombia and a PhD in Engineering Education from Virginia Tech. His research uses a systems perspective to understand the dynamics of the academic system and how it influences faculty motivation to change, undergraduate students’ motivation to learn, and retention and persistence of doctoral students (with special attention to underrepresented minority (URM) students).
Dr. Cheryl A Bodnar http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8665-9839 The Ohio State University [biography]

Dr. Bodnar is a Professor in the Engineering Education Department at The Ohio State University. Her research interests relate to the incorporation of active learning techniques such as game-based learning in undergraduate classes as well as innovation and entrepreneurship.

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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