ISTEP Speaker Series

About

The Speaker Series hosts renowned engineering education scholars, with the mandate of showcasing research related to one of ISTEP’s pillars: leadership, communication, socio-technical thinking or business and entrepreneurship. 

Academic lead Lydia Wilkinson presenting

Past Events

ISTEP Speaker Series Guest Katie Johnson

Illuminating the Sociotechnical in Engineering Education and Practice

Kathryn Johnson - November 12, 2024

I was trained as a technically-focused electrical engineer working on control of wind energy systems. Although I enjoyed that work (and still practice in that area), I began to realize that the world’s wicked problems, including climate change – a big motivator for me – require us to step back and think of large and messy systems sociotechnically. What does that mean, and how does it impact our work as engineering faculty, students, and practitioners?

ISTEP Speaker Series Guest Aditya Johri

Creating and using Role-Play Case Studies to Teach Computing & Engineering Ethics

Aditya Johri - February 13, 2024

The ethical impact of emerging technologies on society has become a critical concern for engineers as well as users. In particular, the effects of computing-based decision-making are being felt across domains including policing, financing, health, and education. How can we train future engineering professionals as both developers and users of these systems to have an ethical mindset that guides responsible creation and deployment of emerging technology?

ISTEP Speaker Series Guest Jonathan Rose

A look Under the Hood of Generative AI

Jonathan Rose - December 11, 2023

Generative AI systems are often described as having internal operations that are invisible or “too complicated” for non-specialists to understand. This (maybe deliberate?) “black boxing” of how deep learning systems make their decisions prevents many of us from truly engaging with the opportunities and challenges that Generative AI present.

ISTEP Speaker Series Guest Daniel Marom

Between Education and Leadership: A Cross-Professional Perspective

Daniel Marom - October 12, 2023

In this seminar we will explore realities and prospects in the interrelation between education and leadership in various professions.  After presenting philosophical ideas on the role professions do and ought to play in society and human improvement,  I will make a claim as to the overriding significance of educational leadership in professions, delineate curricular and pedagogical implications for the training of such leadership and provide examples with regard to engineering, medicine, and psychotherapy.  We will then openly discuss this claim and consider how its possible relevance to the work of the seminar participants in their respective professions.   

ISTEP Speaker Series Guest Susan McCahan

Transforming Engineering Education in Response to AI: Looking for Slide Rules

Susan McCahan - September 12, 2023

The emergence of Generative Artificial Intelligence over the past year has brought awareness of the capabilities of this technology and AI more generally. One of the questions that often gets asked is: “will this technology transform, or displace jobs?” 

ISTEP Speaker Series Guest Jessica Menold

The Cognitive Costs of Design: Exploring the Interactions Between People, Product, and Process

Jessica Menold - March 24, 2023

Design problems are marked by complexity, unknowns, and shifting requirement sets. Design itself is often taken to be a high-level cognitive ability. While the cognitive processes required to create, implement, and validate an innovative solution have been explored in previous work, the toll of such processes on designer cognitive state has not been identified.