Congratulations to Tori Wagner on being awarded a GE Excellence Fellowship for Fall 2024! Tori is currently working on game-based educational interventions and assessments for teaching complex engineering topics, such as engineering ethics. Her current interests are focused on using text analytics, machine learning, and large language models to assist in evaluating qualitative student responses to ethical dilemmas. Tori recently switched to the new Engineering Education Program in the College of Engineering. She holds holds an M.A.Ed. from the UConn Neag School of Education and her B.S. in Chemistry and Chemistry Teaching from the University of Iowa.

Prof. Dan Burkey was recently awarded a $2.5M S-STEM Grant from the National Science Foundation. S-STEM is a program that supports low-income and first-generation students. This particular program will develop a cohort model and curricular and co-curricular supports for students majoring in computing and data sciences at UConn. Working with co-investigators in CLAS and the Provost’s Office, the S-STEM will provide up to $15,000 per year to eligible students in support of their education. The S-STEM will run from 2024 through 2030.

Prof. Dan Burkey has been recently appointed as an Assistant Editor at the Chemical Engineering Education journal, responsible for external engagement. For the past year, he has served as a Guest Editor at the journal, working on the special issues associated with the 2022 Chemical Engineering Summer School, which was held at the Colorado School of Mines in July 2022 and for which he served as part of the Programming Committee.

Prof. Dan Burkey, together with colleagues Cheryl Bodnar, Dan Anastasio, and Matt Cooper have been selected as recipients of the 2023 Himmelblau Award from the CAST Division of AIChE. The Himmelblau award recognizes the outstanding contributions to computing in chemical engineering education. The team, who developed Contents Under Pressure with game designer Filament Games, will accept the award at the CAST Division Dinner to be held at the AIChE Annual Meeting in Orlando this November