Dr. Jeffrey E. Froyd joins the EED
In-Depth Spotlight: Jeffrey E. Froyd
Jeffrey E. Froyd, Ph.D., joined the Department of Engineering Education (EED) as a professor in November 2017. An engineering education pioneer, he chose Ohio State primarily because of the department’s potential to influence engineering education. “I came here because it was a newly formed department and they thought I could contribute to the growth and development of the department,” he said.
If Dr. Froyd’s past accomplishments are any indication of his future contributions to the field of engineering education, that prediction is a conservative one. He has been recognized world-wide for his achievements in various areas, including integrated curriculum development and evaluation; adoption, institutionalization, and propagation of educational innovations; curriculum redesign; and faculty development in optical sensing for diagnostic and biomedical monitoring applications.
Having achieved and participated in so many projects, what more can he accomplish?
For one thing, he’ll continue his National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded systematic review of interventions that support Hispanic students who transfer from two-year institutions to four-year institutions as STEM majors. “We have lots of conversations in engineering about the under representation of various groups in this field, and there is a lot of interest in improving the success and representation of Hispanic students in engineering,” he said. Dr. Froyd noted that the Hispanic population is growing rapidly and has attracted considerable scholarly attention. “Many reports, articles or dissertations have been published that cover a wide range of interventions for Hispanic STEM students, and each one reports a positive influence on student success outcomes,” he said. His own research addresses assumptions coming out of these interventions. “People tend to say, ‘We already know what works.’ However, our findings show that there has been no pattern of interventions that have demonstrated to have worked consistently.” Dr. Froyd’s intends for his work to provide a foundation for others to build on. “If we are able to show a pattern of successful program interventions for Hispanic students, others will want to adopt them,” he said.
During his brief tenure in the EED, Dr. Froyd has mentored faculty and staff, particularly those hired as Assistant Professors. As such, he is co-teaching a Research Methods graduate course in Spring 2018 with Dr. Emily Dringenberg, an Assistant Professor in the EED and new EED hire. Together, they are introducing students to engineering education research and are engaging students from disciplines across the College of Engineering in the creation of better questions for engineering education research. “We’ve designed the course to help students prepare good proposals for compelling research projects,” he said. “If the questions are good and all the pieces line up, you will generally have a good article.”
Dr. Froyd received his B.S. in mathematics from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and his M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota. Before coming to Ohio State, Dr. Froyd spent 18 years at Texas A&M University, most recently as a Research Professor in the Office of Engineering Academic and Student Affairs. Previously, he was a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rose-Hulman. There, he co-created the Integrated First-Year Curriculum in Science, Engineering and Mathematics, which was recognized in 1997 with a Hesburgh Award Certificate of Excellence.
He has served as Project Director for a National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Education Coalition in which six institutions systematically renewed, assessed, and institutionalized innovative, integrated undergraduate engineering curricula. He has also served as a program co-chair for three Frontiers in Education Conferences and the general chair for the 2009 conference. He has authored over 70 journal articles and conference papers and has offered over 30 workshops on faculty development, curricular change processes, curriculum redesign and assessment in the U.S. and abroad.
Additionally, Dr. Froyd is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). He is the Editor-in-Chief for the IEEE Transactions on Education, a Senior Associate Editor for the Journal on Engineering Education, and an Associate Editor for the International Journal on STEM Education.
We are proud to welcome Dr. Jeffrey E. Froyd into the Department of Engineering Education, and we look forward to supporting him in his future endeavors.