Project Focus

The early objective of this project was to study how professional practices relate to nominally similar practices in university engineering classes, and how any continuities and discontinuities between work and school might inform efforts to design engineering classes. More recently our efforts have focused on how prototyping is used in industry and how its use is taught in engineering courses. This project was in collaboration with Dr. Daria Kotys-Schwartz in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at CU-Boulder. Project funding and recent peer-reviewed papers are listed below.

Carlye Lauff's 3-Minutes Thesis (3MT) competition at CU-Boulder (Finalist).

Design Studies (2020): The Role of Prototypes in Communication between Stakeholders

Abstract: Prototypes are complex and dynamic artifacts that shape social situations during product development. A ten-month applied ethnographic study of a footwear company recounts prototypes’ evolving role in communication between three stakeholder groups. In this case study, we use Mol’s “bodies multiple” theory to describe prototypes enactment as communication tools...

International Journal of Engineering Education (2018): Prototypes as Intermediary Objects for Design Coordination in First-Year Design Courses

Abstract: Design has been called one of the defining characteristics of engineering, and it has been long-argued that design is equally social and technical in practice. The field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) has a research tradition of exploring the interwoven social aspects of technical fields like engineering design...

ASME Journal of Mechanical Design (2018): What is a prototype? What are the roles of prototypes in companies?

Abstract: Prototyping is an essential part of product development in companies, and yet it is one of the least explored areas of design practice. There are limited ethnographic studies conducted within companies, specifically around the topic of prototyping. This is an empirical and industrial-based study using inductive ethnographic observations to...

ASME International Design and Engineering Technical Conference (2017): What is a Prototype? Emergent Roles of Prototyping from Emperical Work in Three Diverse Companies

Abstract: This paper explores the nature of prototypes from three diverse companies in the fields of consumer electronics, footwear, and medical devices. It is part of a larger qualitative research study developing a prototyping framework grounded in the emergent findings from practice and detailed inductive inquiry. In this paper, we...

ASME International Design and Engineering Technical Conference (2017): Perceptions of Prototypes: Pilot Study Comparting Students and Professionals

Abstract: Just as design is a fundamental part of engineering work, prototyping is an essential part of the design process. For many engineering design courses, students must develop a final prototype as part of the course requirements. And in industry, engineers build multiple prototypes when creating a product for market...

ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition (2015): Learning and Identity at the Nexus of Practice: Mediated Discourse Analysis as a Methodology for Engineering Education Research

Abstract: This paper works toward two goals. The first is to build on our previous work on “becoming an engineer”, in which we have attempted to understand engineering learning within a broader framework that focuses not only on the development of knowledge or cognitive capacities, but also on additional dimensions,...

ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition (2015): Comparing Organizational Structures: Two Case Studies of Engineering Companies

Abstract: “Design is what engineers do, and the intelligent and thoughtful decision of the engineering curriculum should be the community’s first allegiance.” Yet, we find that engineering design only underpins a small selection of undergraduate courses in a typical engineering curriculum; diminishing the importance of the activity in engineering education...

IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (2014): How is Design Organized? A Preliminary Study of Spatiotemporal Organization in Engineering Design

Abstract: Design is widely considered to be the central or distinguishing activity of engineering and yet it remains an insufficiently researched and understood topic. From the perspective of engineering education, where a “disconnect” between professional engineering practices and university-based practices is an oft-discussed limitation, the sparseness of research on professional...

International Conference of the Learning Sciences (2014): Cognitive Ethnographies of Heterogeneous Engineering Design

Abstract: This is an empirical ethnographic study of how engineers in both undergraduate design courses and the professional workplace engage in engineering design. Our findings suggest that the organizational contexts constitute processes of design differently, in ways that challenge the typical rhetoric of undergraduate education that project courses are intended...

American Society for Engineering Education Zone IV Conference (2014): Undergraduate to Professional Engineering Design: A Disconnected Trajectory?

Abstract: This exploratory, ethnographic study compares engineering design in different organizational settings, as a way of examining the nature of claimed disconnects between professional engineering design practices and those taking place in the undergraduate engineering curriculum. The focus in this research is on three different design contexts. Two are set...