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Exploring Interdisciplinary Contributions to More Sustainable Solutions in the Built Environment and Infrastructure Development Students

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Conference

2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Minneapolis, MN

Publication Date

August 23, 2022

Start Date

June 26, 2022

End Date

June 29, 2022

Conference Session

Multidisciplinary Engineering Division Technical Session - Integrated Engineering and Interdisciplinary Impacts

Page Count

15

DOI

10.18260/1-2--41291

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/41291

Download Count

393

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Paper Authors

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Alisson Bedón Universidad San Francisco de Quito

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Holbeein Velásquez Universidad San Francisco de Quito

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Undergraduate student, Universidad San Francisco de Quito USFQ, Colegio de Ciencias e Ingenierías, Departamento de Ingeniería Civil

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Miguel Andrés Guerra Universidad San Francisco de Quito

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Miguel Andrés is an Assistant Professor in the departments of Civil Engineering and Architecture at Universidad San Francisco de Quito USFQ, in Ecuador. Miguel Andrés is a civil engineer from USFQ (2009), was awarded a MSc in Civil Engineering – Construction Engineering and Management at Iowa State University (Fulbright scholar, 2012)and his PhD in Civil Engineering at Virginia Tech (2019), as well as two Graduate Certificate in Engineering Education and Future Professoriate.

(i) ENGINEERING EXPERIENCE: Miguel Andrés was Project Manager of PREINGESA where he has directed construction projects in the development of urban infrastructure for urbanizations such as earthworks, drinking water works, sewerage, underground electrical cables and fiber optics, roads, aqueducts, water reservoirs, housing construction, among others. He was also a Project Management Associate for a Habitat For Humanity housing project in the USA.

(ii) RESEARCH: Miguel Andrés' research focuses on (1) decision-making for the design and construction of infrastructure projects, (2) the planning of sustainable, smart and resilient cities, and (3) the development of engineers who not only have solid technical and practical knowledge, but also social understanding for, through infrastructure, address local and global challenges on humanitarian, environmental, social and equity issues.

(iii) EDUCATION RESEARCH: Related to STEM education, Miguel Andrés is developing and applying contemporary pedagogies and tools for innovation and student empowerment to address climate change. Currently, Miguel Andrés is developing teaching and evaluation pedagogy that directs a philosophy of seeking excellence as a pillar to eradicate corruption.

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Milagros Jiménez Universidad San Francisco de Quito

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Instructor, Universidad San Francisco de Quito USFQ, Colegio de Ciencias e Ingenierías, Departamento de Ingeniería Civil

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Abstract

Current world challenges require complex solutions from multifaceted and interdisciplinary developments. There is significant research that supports the idea that the contemporary world stands on the interaction of different fields of knowledge. Similarly, the higher impact on solutions and developments is directly related to the level of interdisciplinarity of the developing team. This paper looks at current interdisciplinary practices in engineering education through a successful case study. Specifically, we investigated a student team that participated in a worldwide concrete contest and whose proposed solution obtained first place. The members of such teams came from different backgrounds, areas of expertise, and levels of knowledge. This preliminary exploratory study uses a content analysis of the characteristics in the solution presented by the students to identify sustainability traits and their multidisciplinary connection. The results suggest that interactions in interdisciplinary teams promote designs that maximize efficient solutions. The authors set up the path for future work to conduct interviews and focus groups with the members of the student team and the advising instructors to understand the differentiated contributions of each member and their characteristics. The authors reflect on the avenue that academia could take to form new pedagogical approaches that include interdisciplinarity in engineering schools.

Bedón, A., & Velásquez, H., & Guerra, M. A., & Jiménez, M. (2022, August), Exploring Interdisciplinary Contributions to More Sustainable Solutions in the Built Environment and Infrastructure Development Students Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41291

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2022 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015