Integrating Computation Into Online Engineering Education
Lan Li, Ph.D., Micron School of Materials Science and Engineering
About the project
Computation skills have become increasingly important to students in the engineering field, especially as the pandemic makes in-person classes harder to attend. Dr. Li has developed several computational models to help engineering students and teachers practice necessary computational skills and determine what difficulties and challenges they may face with such an online program. After providing a workshop and distributing models, Dr. Li will conduct surveys to evaluate the effectiveness of the computational models for students and teachers learning remotely.
About the Author
Lan Li is an Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Boise State University. Dr. Li finished her doctorate in Nanomaterials at the University of Cambridge in the UK, followed by working in the Bio-Nano Electronic Research Center at Toyo University in Japan. She conducted her research as a postdoc associate on the theoretical and computational studies of metal-fullerene nano-systems, hydrogen-storage materials, and metal oxide thin films at the Department of Physics, University of Florida. She then joined the Center for Materials Informatics at Kent State University in Ohio, and worked in collaboration with various national laboratories and universities on the development of computational materials research code projects and the transformation of these research codes into modules suitable for effective use in undergraduate education. Before joining Boise State, she was a NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology)-ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) senior fellow, working on energy and sustainability. Dr. Li has been awarded Boise State University’s Top Ten Scholar Honored Faculty, TMS (The Mineral, Metals and Materials Society) Young Leader Professional Development Award and NIST’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Program Fellowship. She presently serves as a member of TMS Integrated Computational Materials Engineering Committee and an IMMI (Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation) journal liaison.
Collaborator
Dr. Tanya Faltens, nanoHUb Educational Content Creation Manager , Purdue University