where she currently teaches first-year engineering design courses. Her research interests in engineering education include the identification of variables that impact the firstyear experience and the development of strategies to enhance it, retention of underrepresented populations in STEM fields and service-learning in engineering.

No abstract

Recent research indicates that first-year, team-based design courses represent a unique opportunity to address such disparities and providing early collaborative learning experiences supports the success of students from underrepresented groups in engineering [10][11][12][13]. While lectures and readings may provide teams with basic tools for team and project management, these correlate team success with the creation of a high-quality final design [14]. Such tools may inadvertently cue students to distribute work according to stereotypical social roles in the belief that by having team members "play to their strengths," they are doing what is best for the team [15]. Such task distribution may limit new learning across team members, exclude historically underrepresented students from high profile team tasks (such as design and fabrication) [16], and thus promote the entrenchment of implicit biases. This study leverages a cooperative learning approach [23] to teamwork and learning in a first-year engineering design course at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering in order to provide more equitable access to learning for all students. Implementation of such approaches in first-year contexts is of particular importance, as these classes are formative for how students view teamwork. The study analyzes results from the use of a novel curricular intervention piloted in Design Thinking and Communication 1 (DTC 1) at Northwestern University. Specifically, the intervention required that students on a team rotate through leadership roles in four key areas: primary research, secondary research, training-building-testing, and project management. The team lead for each role completed associated documentation and coached their successor on how to succeed in that role. Research ContextThis research took place in a required first-year design course during Fall 2019 and Winter 2020 quarters at Northwestern University. The course (entitled Design Thinking and Communication I) focuses on user-centered design for individuals with disabilities, and requires students to collaborate with real-world clients and users. Approximately 140 student participants were enrolled among nine control sections (5 in fall, 4 in winter) that retained the standard course design format or nine experimental sections (5 in fall, 4 in winter), which piloted intentional team role rotation as the curricular innovation. The team roles were (i) primary research, (ii) secondary research, (iii) training-building-testing, and (iv) project management and are described

Her research interests include STEM education at all levels, first-year experience and issues related to the transition from high school to college, and the retention and recruitment of women and minorities to STEM fields.