People

Department: Staff/Administrator

Email: mbsacre@pitt.edu

Phone: 412-624-9836

Office: 148 Benedum Hall

Engineering Education Focus: Mary's principal research is in engineering education assessment, which has been funded by the NSF, Department of Education, Sloan Foundation, Engineering Information Foundation, and VentureWell. Mary's current research focuses on three distinct but highly correlated areas – innovative design and entrepreneurship, engineering modeling, and global competency in engineering.

Recent Engineering Education Papers:

• Streiner, S.C., and M. Besterfield-Sacre, “Development of the Global Engineering Programming Model: A Participatory, Mixed-Methods Approach,” Journal of International Engineering Education. 1, no1 (2018) pp. 1-34. https://doi.org/10.23860/jiee.2018.01.01.03 (2) 3.
• Clark, R.M., A. Kaw, Y. Lou, A. Scott, and M. Besterfield-Sacre. “Evaluating Blended and Flipped Instruction in Numerical Methods at Multiple Engineering Schools,” International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 12, no 1 (2018) pp. 1-16. DOI: 10.20429/ijsotl.2018.120111. (3) 6.
• Besterfield-Sacre, M.E., S. Zappe, A. Shartrand, and K. Hochstedt (2016). “Faculty and Student Perceptions of the Content of Entrepreneurship Courses in Engineering Education,” Advances in Engineering Education, 5, no1 (2016): 1-27.

Active Grants and Recent Achievement Awards:

• Collaborative Research: INCLUDES – Toward an Alliance to Prepare a National Faculty for Broadening Success of Underrepresented 2-Year and 4-Year STEM Students NSF-ICER 1649105
• Innovation Through Propagation: Determining an Engineering Education Research Agenda, NSF/ DRL-1451263
• Collaborative Research: Assessing the Spectrum of International Undergraduate Engineering Educational Experiences, NSF/EEC–1160404

Mary's CV

Department: Industrial Engineering

Email: rmclark@pitt.edu

Phone: 412-648-5359

Office: B12 Benedum Hall

Engineering Education Focus: Dr. Clark conducts research on both externally and internally-funded education-related projects with faculty interested in enhancing and assessing instructional practices within their classrooms. Renee conducts both quantitative and qualitative assessment and evaluation and focuses on pedagogies for active learning, learner-centered instruction, and engineering professional development, including reflection and metacognition, simple active learning to drive interactivity and application, flipped classrooms, adaptive learning, design thinking, and game-based instruction. Another current research area for Dr. Clark is promoting the propagation of active learning in the Swanson School via a 2018 award from the Provost’s Office, in which she coaches and mentors faculty who have an interest in implementing or enhancing active learning in their classrooms, often for the first time. She is also a newly-appointed associate editor for Advances in Engineering Education.

Recent Engineering Education Papers:

• Jeffrey, D. & Clark, R. (2019). Supplementing Western Perspectives of Learner-Centered Instruction with a Daoist Approach Towards Authentic Power Sharing in the Classroom. International J. of Contemporary Education, 2(1), 9-16.
• Clark, R., & Dickerson, S. Assessing the Impact of Reflective Activities in Digital and Analog Electronics Courses. Accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Education, November 2018, DOI 10.1109/TE.2018.2885720.
• Clark, R., & Dickerson, S. (2018). A Case Study of Post-Workshop Use of Simple Active Learning in an Introductory Computing Sequence. IEEE Transactions on Education, 61(3), 167-176.

Active Grants and Recent Achievement Awards:

• Co-Principal Investigator: NSF Research Initiation: Systematic Use of Simulation in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Classroom to Drive Reflection and Metacognition; 9/1/2018-8/31/2020; $200,000 (Award # 1830735)
• Project Director: University of Pittsburgh Office of Provost 2018 Innovation in Education Award Propagation of Active Learning within the Swanson School of Engineering; 5/1/2018-4/30/2019; $15,000

Renee's Resume

Department: Industrial Engineering

Email: aprila@pitt.edu

Phone: 412-383-6014

Office: B12 Benedum Hall

Engineering Education Focus: I facilitate professional development on instructional best practices for current and future STEM faculty, in both synchronous online and in-person environments.

Recent Engineering Education Papers:

• Dukes AA, Sowko, LA, Gartner M, Barber BJ, Clark, RM. (2010) Assessing the Impact of Embedding Nursing Students in Bioengineering Senior Design Projects: Student Perceptions of Interprofessional Team Benefits and Challenges. ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, 2019.

April's CV

Department: Industrial Engineering

Email: lms162@pitt.edu

Phone: 704-264-6415

Office: B-12, Benedum Hall