2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Passing the Torch: Lessons Learned About the Importance of Social Learning in Sharing Change Expertise Across NSF RED Cohorts

Presented at FDD and LEAD Joint Technical Session

This lessons learned paper is situated within the National Science Foundation Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (NSF RED) Community of Practice (CoP). Change projects in the NSF RED program demand more than strategic planning - they require navigating complex human and organizational dynamics. While formal resources exist, much of the critical knowledge for success - leading inter-disciplinary teams, motivating diverse community groups, having difficult conversations, establishing strategic partnerships, creating a shared vision, and avoiding common pitfalls - remains experiential and context-specific.

Within the RED CoP, experienced change leaders (RED Alumni) who have completed their RED projects, serve as peer mentors to RED teams that are in the midst of their change initiatives. In 2025, we had five alumni serve on a keynote panel at the Annual RED Consortium PI meeting and also serve as mentors to current RED teams. During the PI meeting, the RED Alumni interacted with 17 RED teams through several touchpoints, providing high-value insights, sharing lessons learned, answering real-time questions, and offering guidance that cannot be easily codified.

By highlighting the advice that RED Alumni shared at the RED PI meeting, this paper underscores the importance of social learning amongst change agents, and offers practical strategies for teams as they navigate their change journeys. Specifically, in the context of the NSF RED program, social learning, facilitated through the RED CoP, enables RED teams to leverage the experiences of earlier cohorts to identify potential strategies for managing challenges within their own projects. This paper will be presented as a technical talk.

Authors

Dr. Eva Andrijcic Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology [biography]

Eva Andrijcic serves as an Associate Professor of Engineering Management at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Her major interests are in the areas of risk analysis and management, and organizational change management.
Dr. Elizabeth Litzler http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0626-8473 University of Washington [biography]

Elizabeth Litzler, Ph.D., is the director of the University of Washington Center for Evaluation and Research for STEM Equity (UW CERSE) and an affiliate assistant professor of sociology.
Rae Jing Han University of Washington [biography]

Dr. Rae Jing Han (they/them) is a Research Scientist at the University of Washington Center for Evaluation & Research for STEM Equity.
Dr. Nadia N. Kellam http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9327-1226 Arizona State University [biography]

Nadia Kellam (she/they) is Associate Professor of Engineering and the Associate Director for Research Excellence within The Polytechnic School of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. She is a faculty in the Engineering Education Systems and Design PhD program. Dr. Kellam is an engineering education researcher and a mechanical engineer. She is also deputy editor of the Journal of Engineering Education and co-chair of ASEE’s Committee on Scholarly Publications. In her research, she is broadly interested in developing critical understandings of the culture of engineering education and, especially, the experiences of marginalized undergraduate engineering students and engineering educators.
Dr. Sarah Rodriguez http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3409-7096 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Sarah L. Rodriguez is an Associate Professor of Engineering Education and an affiliate faculty member with the Higher Education Program at Virginia Tech. Her engineering education research agenda centers upon engineering and computing identity development of historically marginalized populations at higher education institutions. Currently, Dr. Rodriguez is involved with several large-scale interdisciplinary research projects focused on institutional environments and STEM identity development are sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Kapor Center. In recent years, she was selected as an Early Career Awardee and Faculty Fellow with the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE) and a NASPA Emerging Faculty Leader. She also received the Barbara Townsend Early Career Scholar Award by the Council for the Study of Community Colleges (CSCC) and gave the distinguished ASHE-CAHEP Barbara Townsend Lecture. To learn more about her current projects, visit http://sarahlrodriguez.com/
Dr. Diane T. Rover Iowa State University of Science and Technology [biography]

Diane Rover holds the title of University Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University (ISU). She also currently serves as the alliance director for the NSF Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska IINSPIRE LSAMP (Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation), co-leads projects in the department funded by NSF Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) and Scholarships in STEM (S-STEM) programs, and is a co-PI of the NSF Center for Advancing Research Impact in Society led by the University of Missouri. Her teaching and research have focused on engineering education, high impact educational practices, inclusive educational practices, broader impacts of research, embedded computer systems, system level design, parallel and distributed systems, and performance analysis. Dr. Rover began her academic career at Michigan State University and has served in department and college administrative positions at MSU and ISU, including associate dean of engineering. She has engaged with many academic institutions and professional organizations, including community colleges, both U.S. and international universities, and various boards. She has served in various leadership roles within IEEE, ASEE and ABET. Dr. Rover is a Fellow of the IEEE and of ASEE.
Dr. Vanessa Svihla http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4342-6178 University of New Mexico [biography]

Dr. Vanessa Svihla is a learning scientist and professor at the University of New Mexico in the Organization, Information and Learning Sciences program and in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department.
Dr. Sriram Mohan Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology [biography]

Sriram Mohan is a Professor in the Deparment of Computer Science and Software Engineering at Rose-Hulman institute of Technology. Sriram received a B.E degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Madras and M.S and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from Indiana University. During his time at Rose-Hulman, Sriram has served as a consultant in Hadoop and NoSQL systems and has helped a variety of clients in the Media, Insurance, and Telecommunication sectors. In addition to his industrial consulting activities, Sriram maintains an active research profile in data science and education research that has led to over 30 publications or presentations. At Rose-Hulman, Sriram has focused on incorporating reflection, and problem based learning activities in the Software Engineering curriculum. Sriram has been fundamental to the revamp of the entire software engineering program at Rose-Hulman. Sriram is a founding member of the Engineering Design program and continues to serve on the leadership team that has developed innovative ways to integrate Humanities, Science, Math, and Engineering curriculum into a studio based education model. In 2015, Sriram was selected as the Outstanding Young Alumni of the year by the School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University. Sriram serves as a facilitator for MACH, a unique faculty development experience, aimed at helping faculty and administrator develop a change agent tool box.
Prof. Arun R Srinivasa http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9825-7482 Texas A&M University [biography]

Dr Arun Srinivasa is the Holdredge/Paul Professor and associate department head of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University and has been with TAMU since 1997. Prior to that he was a faculty at University of Pittsburgh. He received his undergraduate

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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