Lab Members
Lab PI: Andrew Katz
Short Narrative Bio
Dr. Katz is an assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. He leads the Improving Decisions in Engineering Education Agents and Systems (IDEEAS) Lab. In order to make this slightly less bizarre, I am going to stop the third person narrative, be realistic, and switch to first person.
I completed my PhD in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University in spring of 2019. I was there for two years after having actually started my doctoral studies at Virginia Tech in Fall 2015. My advisor was Dr. Donna Riley, so when she moved to Purdue to lead the School of Engineering Education there I moved along with her. I was fortunate enough to be supported by an NSF graduate research fellowship, which made the transition a little more feasible since that funding tends to be tied to the student fellow rather than their particular institution of study. For that project (and my dissertation), I studied engineering faculty member mental models of engineering ethics education. I had started graduate school interested in student moral development, but within the first month of the program realized that if faculty members do not change then any sweet research I did on students may not amount to anything. Consequently, I switched to studying faculty members. These days I tend to have an interest in both faculty members and students and go wherever the research problem suggests.
Before starting starting my doctoral work in engineering education, I bounced around a little more than some people. For example, I taught physics (AP Physics I, AP Physics C Mechanics and E&M) at a high school in Dallas, Texas for a couple of years. Before that, I worked as an environmental engineer in Research Triangle Park, NC helping research and write air pollution regulations. That was preceded by a short stint in the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC where I was studying health effects of inhalation exposure to small particles in exhaust gas. Of course, I was interested in that from my master’s degree in environmental engineering at Texas A&M University, where I focused more on water pollution and epigenetic effects of exposure to endocrine disrupting compounds. I also hold a bachelor’s degree in chemical and biomolecular engineering from Tulane University.
Graduate Students
Isil Anakok
Background: Isil holds a B.S. in Mechatronics Engineering from Kocaeli University in Turkey, and a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech. Before she joined Virginia Tech, she worked as an R&D Engineer in wood industry for two years. She worked as a Graduate Teaching Assistant and taught Mechanical Engineering Lab courses for three years. Currently, she is a PhD candidate in Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. She has been working as a Graduate Assistant in the Office of Recruitment, Diversity, and Inclusion. She is a Diversity Scholar and was inducted to the Bouchet Honor Society in 2022. She has been contributing to various projects related to engineering ethics education, natural language processing, service learning, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Research interests: Engineering ethics, engineering design, service learning, DEI
Dissertation topic: Engineering ethics
Contact information: ianakok at vt dot edu
Twitter: @isilanakok
Linkedin
Google Scholar
ORCID
Personal website: https://isilanakok.github.io/
Mitch Gerhardt
Background: Mitch Gerhardt is a first-year doctoral student in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech and worked for General Motors and Caterpillar as a software engineer before returning to academia. Mitch is a member of ASEE, and he’s beginning the Virginia Tech Computer Science master’s program in the Spring of 2024.
Research Interests: Generational development, interactions, and conceptions; Student motivation; Student conceptions of technology; Career expectations and preparedness
Dissertation Topic: Undecided, but trending toward Gen Z and engineering workforce – their conceptions and interactions
Contact Information: mitchg at vt dot edu
LinkedIn
Amanda Ross
Background: Before joining ENGE and VT in the fall of 2021, Amanda completed her B.S. in mathematics and computer science with a minor in statistics from UMBC in spring 2021. While at UMBC, she also pursued her interests in education by being part of the Sherman Scholars program. Through this program, she worked in Baltimore City public schools, helping to teach math and computer science to students in grades 5-12.
Research interests: Computer science education, pedagogy, curriculum design and development, student experiences (with a focus on introductory courses)
Dissertation topic: Undecided
Contact information: amandaross at vt dot edu
LinkedIn
Undergraduate Students
Rachel Inamn
Background: Rachel is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in public and urban affairs with a minor in landscape architecture. She is in her first year of the accelerated master’s program in urban and regional planning at Virginia Tech. She hopes to work with the federal government as a community planner or transportation analyst with a focus on sustainability and accessibility.
Research interests: Sustainability, smart cities, transportation efficiency, data analytics
Contact: Racheli at vt dot edu
Lab Alumni
Yasir Gamieldien
Background: Yasir defended his dissertation in August 2023 and is currently working as a fellow with the Harvard Strategic Data Project.
Research interests: Teaching and Learning, Metacognition, Self-Regulated Learning, Natural Language Processing.
Dissertation topic: Self-regulated learning during a first year engineering ill-structured problem solving course.
Contact information: yasirg at vt dot edu
Personal website
Tina Griesinger
Background: Engineering educator
Research interests: Sustainability, remote teaching and learning, engineering for all
Dissertation topic: Students’ interests in pursuing careers in sustainability
Contact information: tgriesinger at vt dot edu
LinkedIn
ORCID
Umair Shakir
Background: Umair holds bachelor’s and master’s in civil engineering (University of Engineering Technology, Lahore, Pakistan, and will hold Ph.D. Engineering Education, Virginia Tech, USA [expected in Spring 2023]). He has ten years of professional experience ranging from professional engineer in the National Engineering Services Pakistan (5 years), to Dubai (1-years), and to assistant professor (The University of Lahore-3 years). He is also certified as a Project Management Professional (PMP). During his Ph.D., Umair served as a graduate research assistant on NSF projects and as a teaching assistant in the Department of Engineering Education at VT. He has analytical skills in python and R. In addition to this, he is currently using the state of the art natural language processing (NLP) techniques to analyze large-scale qualitative data. Ultimately, Umair aspires to serve a leadership role as an international development sector agent, contributing to both educational physical infrastructure and evidenced-based national educational policy.
Research interests: Equity of educational opportunities regardless of class, gender, religion, or location; engineering ethics; program assessment; corruption in the construction industry
Dissertation topic: NLP and engineering ethics assessment
LinkedIn