2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Positioning Human-Centered Engineering Within Engineering Education: Presenting a Picture of an Emerging Discipline

Human-centered engineering (HCE) is being included in the different engineering curricula and disciplines in different ways. The notable scale-up in recent years is manifested in different publications, academic degrees, research agendas and available funding. The presence of a “human” in the engineering of today’s products, systems and services means different things for different stakeholders and is approached differently depending on norms and traditions of different scholarly and practice communities. Realizing the pressing need to clarify goals and objectives of human-centered engineering as a discipline, and in relation to engineering education, we seek to trace its emergence within the engineering education community. Specifically, in this work, we seek to examine how published research in engineering education has conceptualized and engaged with human-centered engineering as a discipline and as a community of practice. The paper will explore distinctions between human-centered design and human-centered engineering. We try to answer the question of what patterns, frameworks, or tensions emerge from published work. The growth of HCE academic programs and centers, with related domains (e.g., human systems integration, engineering ethics, participatory design, systems thinking), will enable identifying emerging trades. In this paper, we focus primarily on our methodology and analytical framework for ways to conceptualize goals and outcomes of HCE education. In this larger effort, we analyze themes in published papers in the annual conferences of the American Society of Engineering Education and in the Journal of Engineering Education to reveal the identity and status of human-centered engineering. We share our criteria for inclusion of different articles and our analysis method. We show what discussions in published research on human-centered engineering, clear or ambiguous, tell us about the present state and probable future of human-centered engineering as an emerging discipline. Findings will have implications for research as opportunities for theory-building in HCE, for education as effective ways to integrate HCE across undergraduate and graduate curricula, and for the community as ways to strengthen shared identity and scholarly community of practice.

Authors

Hadi Ali http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5308-3231 Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University - Prescott [biography]

Hadi Ali is an Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Dr. Brock Craft http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1247-2457 University of Washington [biography]

Brock Craft is a Teaching Professor and Director of the Undergraduate Program in the department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. His areas of specialization include Information Visualization, Human-Computer Interaction, and Instructional Design.
Dr. Sirena C. Hargrove-Leak Elon University [biography]

Dr. Sirena Hargrove-Leak is a Professor of Engineering at Elon University. The mission of the university and its commitment to learning have led her to explore the scholarship of teaching and learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). More specifically, her current engineering education interests include entrepreneurial mindsets, user-centered design, project-based learning, and broadening participation in STEM - particularly for underrepresented populations.
Eugene Korsunskiy http://orcid.org/https://0009-0005-0368-0579 Dartmouth College
Dr. Micah Lande http://orcid.org/https://0000-0003-4964-5654 South Dakota School of Mines & Technology [biography]

Micah Lande, PhD is an Associate Professor and E.R. Stensaas Chair for Engineering Education in the Leslie A. Rose Department of Mechanical Engineering at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology. Dr. Lande directs the Holistic Engineering Learning Lab and Observatory. He teaches human-centered engineering design, design thinking, and design innovation courses. Dr. Lande researches how technical and non-technical people learn and apply design thinking and making processes to their work. He is interested in the intersection of designerly epistemic identities and vocational pathways. Dr. Lande received his B.S. in Engineering (Product Design), M.A. in Education (Learning, Design and Technology) and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (Design Education) from Stanford University.
Mr. Alexander Pagano University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign [biography]

Alex Pagano is a PhD student studying engineering design. His work is focused on the early phases of design and the use of human-centered design or design thinking as a teaching tool. Alex holds a BS in Materials Science and Engineering from University of
Ms. Taylor Parks http://orcid.org/0009-0005-3311-7795 University of Illinois Urbana - Champaign [biography]

Taylor Parks is the engineering course development fellow with the Siebel Center for Design’s Assessment and Research Team at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She earned her bachelor's in engineering mechanics and master's in curriculum & instruction from Illinois. Her research focuses primarily on supporting students’ design competency development through the implementation of strategic course design content and by promoting teamwork in complex engineering problem solving through collaborative task design. She currently co-leads the integration of human-centered engineering design within select departments across the Grainger College of Engineering.
Mr. Saadeddine Shehab University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign [biography]

I am currently the Associate Director of Assessment and Research team at the Siebel Center for Design (SCD) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I work with a group of wonderful and talented people at SCD’s Assessment and Research Laboratory to conduct research that informs and evaluates our practice of teaching and learning human-centered design in formal and informal learning environments.

My Research focuses on studying students’ collaborative problem solving processes and the role of the teacher in facilitating these processes in STEM classrooms.
Dr. Cristián Vargas-Ordóñez http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7979-3901 South Dakota School of Mines and Technology [biography]

Dr. Cristián Vargas-Ordóñez is an Assistant Professor in the Leslie A. Rose. Department of Mechanical Engineering at South Dakota Mines, where he directs the Laboratory for Trans/disciplinary/formative Engineering Education (TREE Lab). His research explores human-centered, compassionate approaches to engineering education, integrating the arts and ethics into design-based learning. Dr. Vargas-Ordóñez leads studies on Human-Centered Engineering and the role of interdisciplinary and creative practices in shaping engineers’ professional and citizen formation.

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