Kaitlin Litchfield

Investigating Gains from EWB-USA Involvement

AbstractThere is a national need for an increased quantity of engineers. In addition to pure quantity, there are calls for a more diverse engineering population capable of addressing increasingly complex and global future challenges. Many acknowledge that current institutionalized models of education may not be filling these needs and that extracurricular experiences may recruit and retain diverse engineers while supplementing traditional education. This research investigates the internationally-focused and largely unstudied organization, Engineers Without Borders (EWB-USA), to understand members’ perceptions of what an engineer needs to know, what gaps they experience in their education, and what gains they experience from their membership in EWB-USA. Responses to open-ended questions were collected from 505 members at five geographically spread regional EWB-USA workshops. These responses were analyzed for the total population and disaggregated for gender and professional status. The most common gains me...

Socially Engaged Engineers’ Career Interests and Experiences: A Miner’s Canary

AbstractEngineers that are actively engaged with both the social and technical dimensions of engineering work—socially engaged engineers—offer diversity in skill sets, values, and characteristics to the engineering workforce. This diversity can help the engineering profession better address complex global challenges. Despite the value of socially engaged engineers, the field lacks understanding about the career interests and experiences of these engineers. This study investigates EWB-USA members as a case of socially engaged engineers to explore engineering students’ career interests and practicing engineers’ career intentions and experiences. Using mixed-methods and a lens of meaningful work, this study compares differences between EWB-USA members and nonmembers. Findings indicated two main trends among EWB-USA members: females’ disillusionment with community development engineering work and practitioners’ strategies to find more personally meaningful work. This paper discusses why and how these findings...

Sustainable community development: Westwood solar furnace project

This paper presents a humanitarian engineering project in Denver, Colorados Westwood community. Under the guidance of Dr. Bernard Amadei, a team of graduate students from the University of Colorado created a simple and helpful technology solution for the community that could alleviate an identified problem common for households in Westwood. This paper presents the project through all the steps: community appraisal, analysis, problem identification, strategy planning, implementation and a plan for monitoring and evaluation. The team identified the financial burden of high energy bills on the residents of the community as a pervasive problem that could be alleviated with a simple design, the solar furnace, a box built using recycled aluminum cans, plywood and acrylic plastic that heats the house through the conversion of solar energy into warm air. To demonstrate the technology, the students constructed and tested a solar furnace unit, implemented a pilot test at Re:Visions (a local NGO working in Westwood) office, held a focus group with community leaders (“promotoras”) for discussion about the pilot unit, calculated energy and cost savings for the design, and developed a plan to continue the project from pilot stage to community implementaion. The paper addresses the capacity and risk analysis for this design, the design itself, the implementation plan, the monitoring and evaluation plan which are the natural next steps in the project.

A new vision: Changed engineering outcome expectations through EWB-USA

With the growing demands for additional and diverse engineers, the atypical gender balance experienced by Engineers Without Borders-USA (EWB-USA) is a unique engineering education research setting. Exploring the gender balance of this organization could assist the fields efforts in better recruiting and retaining female engineers. In this work-in-progress study, a social cognitive career theory framework is used to explore the engineering outcome expectations of engineers both involved and not involved with the organization. Qualitative methods were used to gather outcome expectations of male, female, professional, and student engineers, and initial case-based and thematic coding was performed. Preliminary results suggest that EWB-USA members have unique engineering outcome expectations that are often influenced by their organizational involvement. This study may identify ways in which the larger engineering field can replicate similar alternative expectations, particularly to aid the recruitment and retention of a more gender balanced engineering population.

Engineers without borders: An empirical investigation of member's defining characteristics

The present study is an empirical investigation of characteristics associated with membership in Engineers Without Borders (EWB). EWB is an international organization that has grown rapidly over the past decade. Despite this growth, few studies have investigated the characteristics of EWB members. The present study investigates these characteristics via survey research targeting the student body at a large state university in the American West.

Perceptions of engineering identity: Diversity and EWB-USA

Currently, the engineering community faces shortages. These shortages can be conceptualized as both literal shortages of numbers, particularly females, and a more conceptual shortage of engineers who are trained and qualified to handle the transitioning global context of the profession. With its rapid growth, high female involvement, and global vision, Engineers Without Borders-USA (EWB-USA) stands as a prime research model for the larger engineering field. During a series of five regional EWB-USA workshops, participants were asked to respond to six open-ended questions dealing with identity and gains from their involvement. Thousands of unique responses were coded into emergent themes to identify the most common responses and to compare response themes across questions. Results suggest that EWB-USA members identify strongly with the organization, which may increase their identity with and motivation to remain in the profession. Results also show that EWB-USA members are filling significant education gaps from their organizational involvement and are gaining the desirable global engineering qualities required within the field. These results help unpack the motivations driving EWB-USA members and gains from their membership that may help, through future curriculum development, attract and retain a diverse engineering population able to handle future challenges required by the profession.