Twenty faculty members and students from the Department of Engineering Education traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina, for the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Conference, bringing home awards and memories from one of engineering’s biggest events.
Held in early July, the ASEE conference is a large, flagship event dedicated solely to engineering education.
It included poster viewing and technical sessions, exhibits and a career fair designed to connect current engineering students and recent graduates with employers from industry, academia and government. It also included networking opportunities, social events and mixers.
Department chair Idalis Villanueva Alarcón, Ph.D., was one of only eight members officially inducted as an ASEE Fellow — one of the society’s greatest honors. She was recognized for her exceptional and sustained contributions to engineering education, extraordinary leadership, scholarship and service.
EEd graduate student Hassan Tanvir, EEd Assistant Professor Gloria Kim, Ph.D., and Endowed Professor Philip Feng, Ph.D., of UF’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, earned Best ECE Division Paper for their work titled “Longitudinal analysis of competency development in a quantum hardware course.”
ChE graduate student Caroline Lubbe, MAE undergraduate student Ayla Sevilleno, EEd Assistant Professor Sindia M. Rivera-Jiménez, Ph.D., and external collaborator Justin Ortagus, Ph.D., a professor at University of Texas at Austin, received award recognition and were keynote plenary presenters for the ASEE 2025 Best PIC IV and Best PIC Overall Paper for their NSF- and EEC-sponsored paper.
Their paper, “Adjustment experiences among engineering transfer students: A pilot study at a four-year institution in Florida,” is important because “engineering transfer students bring talent, resilience and critical workforce potential to four-year institutions, but successful transfer requires more than admission. This study highlights why we must better understand students’ adjustment experiences so we can build systems that support talent development, persistence and preparation for the engineering workforce,” explained Rivera- Jiménez.
EEd graduate student Mariam Ayub, Rivera-Jiménez and chemical engineering collaborator Fernando Merida, Ph.D., were awarded the 2026 Annual Conference Division Best Paper for the Division of Experimentation & Lab-Oriented Studies for their paper “Exploring emotional and cognitive responses in engineering education: An exploratory study in laboratory learning environments.”
“This work matters because, as AI and other emerging technologies reshape engineering learning, we need to understand not only what students learn, but how they experience learning,” Rivera-Jiménez said. “By examining students’ emotional and cognitive responses in blended lab environments, this study offers insights for designing learning experiences that build confidence, persistence and real-world engineering skills.”
Additionally, nearly all of UF’s EEd faculty spoke at the conference, along with a selection of their students.
Finally, the attendees celebrated the department’s seventh birthday, complete with cake and a Gator chomp.