Conference: Broadening Participation (BPart) and NSF Network Breakfast Events at ASME-IDETC-CIE 2023; Boston, Massachusetts; 20-23 August 2023

University Of California - Merced, Merced CA

Investigators

Abstract

This award will broaden the participation of students and those from underrepresented groups and enhance the exchange of ideas during the 2023 ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (IDETC-CIE 2023). IDETC-CIE is the second largest conference organized annually by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and typically brings 500-1000 participants from academia, industry, national laboratories, funding agencies, and policymaking bodies. The conference enables collaboration, knowledge sharing, and skill development across all engineering disciplines, while promoting the vital role of engineers in society. The objective of broadening participation in this conference will be fulfilled by adding a series of NSF-sponsored events to the conference program that will actively bring together and engage students and underrepresented groups in a dedicated creative thinking environment. These events will be supplemented by a networking breakfast, in which attendees will come together with NSF program officers to discuss topics related to engineering faculty careers, industry jobs for students, increasing diversity, promoting industry-academia partnerships, enhanced pedagogy, and promoting emerging areas of research in science and engineering, among other topics. The proposed series of events will open new doors of research and creativity for students, faculty, and industry participants. The first objective of this award is to support the mission of the 2023 ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (ASME-IDETC-CIE 2023) for broadening participation of underrepresented groups by offering a kick-off dinner event for 30 participants and a student networking event for 150 students. These two events will bring students and other attendees from diverse backgrounds together to brainstorm research ideas in a conducive and inclusive environment. This cross-fertilization of ideas will have the potential to inspire new interdisciplinary research directions and to provide potential breakthroughs for current barriers in the participants’ research. The second objective of this award is to facilitate the collaboration and professional development of 250 participants through a networking breakfast at this conference. This breakfast event will complement the kick-off dinner and student networking events, which will be held early in the conference, to help students and underrepresented participants feel more comfortable intermingling and subsequently learning and sharing ideas throughout the conference. 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.