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Francisco Cima is a Ph.D. student in Engineering Management and Systems Engineering at Old Dominion University. He obtained his Masters in Business Planning and Regional Development from the Technological Institute of Merida. His areas of interest are innovation practices in organizations, information and communication technology in organizations, knowledge management, and team processes

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Pilar Pazos is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA. Her main areas of research interest are collaborative work-structures, virtual teams, and team decision-making and performance.

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Dr. Jennifer Kidd is a Master Lecturer in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Old Dominion University. Her research interests include engineering education, computational thinking, student-authored digital content, and classroom assessment, especially peer review. She currently has support from the National Science Foundation for two projects related to engineering education for preservice teachers.

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Dr. Gutierrez received her B.S. in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2001, M.Ed. in Secondary Science Education in 2005 from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and Ph.D. in Science Education in 2016 from North Carolina State University. Dr. Gutierrez is currently serving as an Assistant Professor of Science Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Old Dominion University. She teaches elementary science methods and secondary science and mathematics methods courses with emphasis on multicultural education and equity pedagogies. Her research interests include both formal and informal STEM education, with specialization in the integration of engineering and computer science into science education through preservice and inservice educator development.

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Stacie Ringleb is a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Old Dominion University and a fellow of the American Society of Biomechanics. Dr. Ringleb received a B.S. in biomedical engineering from Case Western Reserve University in 1997, a M.S.E. from Temple University in Mechanical Engineering in 1999, and a PhD from Drexel University in Mechanical Engineering in 2003. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Orthopedic Biomechanics Lab at the Mayo Clinic. Dr. Ringleb research interests include, biomechanics and rehabilitation engineering as well as multi-disciplinary approaches to improving engineering education.

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Dr. Ayala received his BS in Mechanical Engineering with honors (Cum Laude) from Universidad de Oriente (Venezuela) in 1995, MS in Mechanical Engineering in 2001 and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in 2005, both from University of Delaware (USA). Dr. Ayala is currently serving as Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Technology Department, Frank Batten College of Engineering and Technology, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA.

Prior to joining ODU in 2013, Dr. Ayala spent three years as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Delaware where he expanded his knowledge on simulation of multiphase flows while acquiring skills in high-performance parallel computing and scientific computation. Before that, Dr. Ayala held a faculty position at Universidad de Oriente at Mechanical Engineering Department where he taught and developed graduate and undergraduate courses for a number of subjects such as Fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer, Thermodynamics, Multiphase Flows, Fluid Mechanics and Hydraulic Machinery, as well as Mechanical Engineering Laboratory courses.

In addition, Dr. Ayala has had the opportunity to work for a number of engineering consulting companies, which have given him an important perspective and exposure to the industry. He has been directly involved in at least 20 different engineering projects related to a wide range of industries from the petroleum and natural gas industry to brewing and newspaper industries. Dr. Ayala has provided service to professional organizations such as ASME. Since 2008 he has been a member of the Committee of Spanish Translation of ASME Codes and the ASME Subcommittee on Piping and Pipelines in Spanish. Under both memberships, the following Codes have been translated: ASME B31.3, ASME B31.8S, ASME B31Q and ASME BPV Sections I.

While maintaining his industrial work active, his research activities have also been very active; Dr. Ayala has published 90 journal and peer-reviewed conference papers. His work has been presented in several international forums in Austria, the USA, Venezuela, Japan, France, Mexico, and Argentina. Dr. Ayala has an average citation per year of all his published work of 44.78.

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Dr. Krishnanand Kaipa is an Assistant Professor and director of the Collaborative Robotics and Adaptive Machines (CRAM) Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the Old Dominion University. Dr. Kaipa received his BE (Hons.) in Electrical Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India in 1998, and his MS in 2004 and PhD in 2008, both in Aerospace Engineering from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He worked as a postdoctoral associate at Department of Computer Science, University of Vermont and later at Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland, where he was also a research assistant professor. Dr. Kaipa’s research interests include biologically inspired robotics, human-robot collaboration, embodied cognition, and swarm intelligence. Dr. Kaipa is a member of ASME and IEEE.

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