Three JMU faculty named KEEN Engineering Unleashed 2020 Fellows
News
SUMMARY: Kurt Paterson, Daniel Castaneda, and Jacquelyn Nagel are among 29 engineering faculty from across the U.S. recognized by The Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN) for their leadership in engineering education and entrepreneurial engineering.
By Meghan Long, CISE student writer
The Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN) selects three JMU Engineering faculty—Kurt Paterson, Daniel Castaneda, and Jacquelyn Nagel as 2020 Engineering Unleashed Fellows.
Each Fellow completed the year-long KEEN Engineering Unleashed Faculty Development Program – creating resources to help advance the JMU Engineering mission to integrate an entrepreneurial mindset into practices that benefit students, JMU, and the greater community.
KEEN recognized Nagel as a "New Face of Engineering" for her trailblazing work in bio-inspired design and Paterson for his ability to craft learning experiences, spaces, and communities that allow students to imagine, design, and build solutions that matter. Castaneda was recognized for incorporating pedagogical practices to help students develop as critically conscious and culturally competent in normative engineering practices.
Castaneda attended a KEEN faculty development workshop at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington, D.C. "I was inspired to prototype an idea with other faculty from across the nation – how to make repetitive, mundane research lab tasks more meaningful by embedding an artistic goal in the repetitive action," says Daniel. He believes his work helps transform a student's mindset from being absent-minded in mundane tasks to being fully engaged in research and curious about the world around them. Being selected for the fellowship allows him to develop the idea, strengthening student learning in research contexts, and sharing with others in the KEEN network.
"This honor highlights the program's commitment to excellence in undergraduate engineering education," says Bayo Ogundipe, Engineering Department Head. "We are constantly honing our craft, learning new skills and methods to remain at the forefront of best practices in training excellent engineers."
Each Fellow will receive funding to advance their projects at JMU. The Engineering Unleashed Fellowship is part of KEEN, which JMU joined in 2017. It includes 51 partner institutions and over 3,000 engineering faculty members.
Learn more about JMU's Engineering Program
