University Faculty Members Named Among Top Young Engineering Educators

Two faculty members from the College of Engineering at the University of Arkansas are among 53 of the nation's most innovative young engineering educators to be selected to take part in the National Academy of Engineering's second Frontiers of Engineering Education symposium. Micah Hale, associate professor of civil engineering and Jamie Hestekin, assistant professor of chemical engineering where selected as early-career faculty members who are developing and implementing innovative educational approaches in their engineering disciplines. They will join colleagues from around the country Dec. 13-16 in Irvine, Calif. for the event, where they can share ideas and learn from research and best practice in education. Hale and Hestekin were nominated by fellow engineers or deans and chosen from a highly competitive pool of applicants.

Hale the 2010 recipient of the Charles and Nadine Baum Faculty Teaching Award, the university's most prestigious teaching award.

Hestiken has mentored many award-winning student research projects and this year won a John A. White Award for Faculty-Student Collaboration for research into creating biofuels from algae.

This year's Frontiers of Engineering Education symposium program will focus on ways to ensure that students learn the engineering fundamentals, the expanding knowledge base of new technology, and the skills necessary to be an effective engineer or engineering researcher.

"In our increasingly global and competitive world, the United States needs to marshal its resources to address the strategic shortfall of engineering leaders in the next decades," said Edward F. Crawley, Ford Professor of Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the chair of the symposium planning committee."By holding this event, we have recognized some of the finest young engineering educators in the nation, and will better equip them to transform the educational process at their universities."