Travel: CoNECD 2022 BPE CAREER Award Panel

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University, Blacksburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

The Faculty Early CAREER Development Program (CAREER) is an NSF-wide program recognized as one of the most prestigious awards that support the research efforts of early career faculty. It recognizes the importance of early academic career development and emphasizes the importance of the link between research and education. It is fairly recent that CAREER awards have been made in the area of broadening participation in engineering, with many of the awardees being involved in engineering education research. It is imperative that the results of research in this area be broadly shared with both practitioners and other researchers in order to reap the full benefits of the research outcomes. Conferences are a much quicker and more frequent venue, often showcasing not just completed efforts but also works in progress. The benefit to the researcher is the opportunity to network and obtain valuable feedback on their work, while the practitioner gains knowledge of evidenced based practices that they can utilize in their current work. The CoNECD Conference will host a panel of CAREER awardees in the area of broadening participation. This presents an opportunity for four early career faculty to showcase their work to an audience of researchers and practitioners. The panel host is a CAREER award recipient and an assistant professor of engineering education at Virginia Tech. Intellectual Merit The research conducted by these NSF CAREER awardees is vital for those concerned with the lack of diversity in engineering and computing fields. To reach its full potential, it is necessary for research results to be shared with practitioners who can then tailor their programmatic efforts using evidence-based outcomes that are grounded in current literature. As opposed to relying on anecdotal evidence of activities that have been successful, practitioners can utilize the CAREER research results to better inform their efforts. The panel will aid in the dissemination of NSF funded research directly to the community that needs it. Broader Impacts The CoNECD Conference is the only conference that focuses on broadening participation of all groups underrepresented in engineering. CoNECD provides a forum for exploring current research and practices to enhance diversity and inclusion of all underrepresented populations in the engineering and computing professions including gender identity and expression, race and ethnicity, disability, veterans, LGBTQ+, 1st generation and socio-economic status. This proposal will enable sharing of current research in broadening participation with those who are charged with achieving this goal. It is expected that this will enable the practitioners to create evidence-based activities that will increase the numbers of underrepresented and underserved individuals who engage in engineering and computing. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.