is a Senior Evaluation and Research Associate at the Science Museum of Minnesota. For over a decade, she has been interested in how young people-and in particular, girls and youth of color-learn science and engineering in both formal and informal learning environments. Her research explores how pre-college youth develop engineering skills, knowledge, and ways of thinking as a result of participating in engineering experiences within out-of-school settings. Since joining the Science Museum of Minnesota, Dr. Svarovsky has conducted both evaluation and research studies on a broad range of projects, each focused on engaging the public in current science and engineering topics. Dr. Svarovsky holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame and a PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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Broadening participation in engineering, increasing students interest in engineering, and increasing technological literacy are concerns that engineering programs and engineering education researchers continue to address. One important group to consider in this process is parents. Parents play a number of roles in engineering education: they can motivate interest in engineering in early childhood, they can provide support when their child is in the process of selecting a major at college, they can provide experiences for learning engineering concepts and skills, and can serve as role models if they themselves are engineers. Using multiple case study analysis, this paper examines different roles parents play in engineering education through five distinct studies. In these five studies, participants range from parents of young children up to high school age, in a variety of different settings. The collection of these five studies provides unique insights into a more comprehensive understanding of the ways that parents are engaged in engineering education.

Dorie is a doctoral candidate in Engineering Education at Purdue University. Her research focuses upon how young children engage in and learn about engineering in informal environments, especially through the use of media.