I am a quantitative person who uses qualitative methods. I have a PhD in Engineering Education from Purdue University and a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Olin College.
In my research, I take a critical postmodernist approach to investigating engineering cultures, curricular change, learning in open source communities, faculty development, and applying open source and free culture principles to STEM higher education.
I teach electrical and computer engineering at undergrad and grad levels, with occasional forays into senior CS seminars focused on open source development. I have taught qualitative research methods to engineering students as group independent studies; I would welcome more opportunities to teach graduate qualitative methods courses. I have a particular fondness for teaching project-based, studio-style courses in the first year (DC circuits, intro to makerspaces, intro to engineering design, etc.,) and in senior capstones, as they often set up the notion of “what engineering is” in students’ minds.
I have also run faculty development workshops around the world. These are especially fun when my job is essentially to unleash undergrads and guide them through “instructing” faculty.
My most recent work analyzes faculty narratives to show complex and interacting images of how engineering faculty understand and portray their own roles in curricular change efforts. It’s got comics.
Oh, yeah. I draw research comics. https://www.scribd.com/user/34172836/Mel-Chua
My future work lies in the area of prototyping alternate-universe (fancypants words: alternate onto-ethico-epistemology) curricular cultures in engineering, computing, technology, and hacker/maker education. How do we write engineering fictions and then make those worlds into engineering nonfiction?
See melchua.com for more.
