Undergraduate engineering education must train students to not only solve design challenges that transcend disciplinary boundaries, but also communicate, transfer knowledge, and collaborate across technical and non-technical boundaries. One approach to achieving this goal is teaching bio-inspired design (BID) in an engineering curriculum. In…

In recent years, employers have expressed concerns that Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) graduates, though proficient in their academic disciplines, lack the critical skills necessary for success in the workplace (Karimi & Pina, 2021). Additionally, many non-STEM majors do not develop the basic STEM competencies that…

In a year-long undergraduate research program, life science majors were paired with majors in the other STEM disciplines of computer science, engineering, mathematics and physical sciences, to work on interdisciplinary life science projects. Typical teams had one undergraduate in a life science and one from another STEM discipline, along with…

This paper summarizes our experience of teaching undergraduate robotic courses in the past ten years. The objective is to introduce students to the fundamental knowledge in robotics. Lecture topics covered subjects in both Autonomous Mobile Robots and Robotic Manipulator. In the lab sessions, students work on physical robots to acquire basic…

Background: The field of collaborative biostatistics plays a critical role in translating scientific discoveries into practical applications by providing sound statistical analysis, ensuring data integrity, and facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration in translational science and decision-making in healthcare. The role of a collaborative…

With support from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Merced Anomaterials Center for Energy and Sensing (MACES) was launched in the summer of 2015 at the University of California Merced (UC Merced). MACES is a research and education center, focused on creating innovative materials-enabled solutions for energy and…

Methods traditionally used to teach and train in STEM fields are being used to educate for careers in homeland security, Wall Street investments, and financial planning. An example of this trend is the increasing number of courses offered at institutions of higher education, such as financial engineering, computational finance, and risk analytics.…

An integrative introduction to the sciences and an introduction to scientific writing can provide a strong foundation for broadly trained STEM majors to explore the interconnectedness of STEM disciplines and prepare them for scientific research. These goals have been accomplished through a sequence of two first-year courses, STEM 101: Integrative…

Men outnumber women in the enrollment of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) undergraduate majors. Course syllabi are distributed to students during open enrollment and provide key insights into the courses. A critical discourse analysis of introductory engineering syllabi at a 4-year public university revealed limited to no…

Research experience has been proven to be effective in enhancing the overall educational experience for undergraduate students. In this article, two engineering research projects with undergraduate students involvement are discussed. The projects provided the undergraduate student researchers with motivation for independent research work and…

There is a growing interest in STEAM (STEM + Arts) education nationwide. To uncover why these interdisciplinary initiatives can play a significant role in the student educational experience, it is crucial to identify characteristics of university students, who are participating and enrolled in STEM and arts curricula. We are interested in students…

Many interesting research and design questions occur at the intersections of traditional disciplines, yet most coursework and research programs for undergraduate engineering students are focused on one discipline. This leads to underutilization of the potential in better preparing students through multidisciplinary projects. Identifying this…

Collaborating at two universities to improve teaching and learning in undergraduate engineering, an interdisciplinary team of researchers, instructors, and evaluators planned and implemented the use of multimedia case studies with students enrolled in an introductory engineering course. This qualitative action evaluation study focuses on results…

Since 2005 we have pursued a formal research program called the BRAID (Bringing Relationships Alive through Interdisciplinary Discourse), which is designed to develop and test strategies for training first- and second-year undergraduate science students to bridge scientific disciplines. The BRAID's ongoing multiyear investigation points to…

To attract and retain more academically qualified students to science and mathematics, we developed a merit-based scholarship program for incoming students with STEM interests. Scholarship recipients participate for the first two years in an interdisciplinary learning community and declare a STEM major by the sophomore year. STEM Learning…