The 14th Annual Engineering, Social Justice and Peace Conference

Removing borders among disciplines

The theme for this year’s conference is Removing Borders Among Disciplines. Engineering as a profession and academic field has existed largely in isolation from other disciplines. In this years conference authors will explore what author Gloria Anzaldúa defined as the nepantla – the liminal space, the in-between, and the borderlands from which novel insight and inspiration emerges. In our context, this means exploring the spaces and borders that have historically isolated engineering from outside socio-political critiques or academic traditions. Our goal is to foster an educational setting where unique insight and revolutionary change can emerge from our community.

Conference schedule

• Thursday, June 13, 2019
  • 12-1 arrivals and lunch (Skylake)
  • 1-1.30 Introduction
  • 1.30-2 Panel Discussion Ethnography, Engineering, and the Space In Between
  • 2-3 Session 1 Whose engineering is it anyway?
  • 3.-3.30  Tea break
  • 3.30-4.30 Session 2 Engineering for social justice outside the academy
  • 4.30-5.30 Workshop 1 Politicizing Engineering Pasts, Envisioning Engineering Futures
  • 5.30 Dinner
  • 7-8 Workshop 2 tierrafiltra, recuperando lo nuestro
• Friday, June 14, 2019
  • 9-10 Session 3 Interdisciplinary approaches
  • 10-11 Workshop 3 Designing Engineering Careers in Social Justice and Peace
  • 11-12 Session 4 Criticality, politicization and optimism
  • 12-1 Lunch
  • 1-2 Workshop 4 Trust: a year on
  • 2-3 Session 5 New approaches on design
  • 3-3.30 Tea
  • 3.30-4.30 Workshop 5 Engineering Partnerships in Development: Who Defines Success?
  • 4.30-5.30 Workshop 6 Choose Your Own Adventure in Development Engineering
  • 5.30 Dinner and Eric Brubaker ‘In being worked on: A spoken word poem’
• Saturday, June 15, 2019
  • 9-11 Forest Exploratorium and local rural knowledge with Leanne Avery, Eric Feinblatt and Caroline Baillie. This is an opportunity to see a ‘Forest school’ in action, experience nature based pedagogy and how to connect STEM learning to local rural knowledge.  This will be held at Skylake.
  • You are welcome to stay at Skylake to enjoy the facilities and have informal meetings until 12 noon.

Session details

Only the lead author is named – see abstracts for full list of authors.

• Session 1 Whose engineering is it anyway? (60 min)
  1. George Catalano, “Omnium engineering: Extending compassion beyond our species”
  2. Sara Baptiste-Brown, “Values at the Core of Engineering Work”
  3. Chris Byrne, “Combining your grandmother’s love with the efficiency of McDonalds”
  4. Andrea Haverkamp. “Trans in Engineering: Themes from a National Outreach Questionnaire”
• Session 2 Engineering for social justice outside the academy (60 min)
  1. Kelly Stefanski, “AguaClara A Multistakeholder Approach to Empower Communities with Safe Water”
  2. Juan David Reina Rozo, “Challenges around communal innovation research with communities in the Colombia post-agreement”
  3. Joris Gjata, Matthew Rowe, and Shawhin Roudbari, “An Old Quest for A New Engineer: How engineering scholars envision engineers’ organizing around social problems”
  4. Shehla Arif, “The Interplay of knowledge and power: The way forward?”
• Session 3 Interdisciplinary approaches (60 min)
  1. Ian Coxon, “Like water & oil: Merging Human Science insights with Natural Science (Engineering) thinking …the experiential way”
  2. Patric Wallin, “Interdisciplinary student driven research – Challenging traditional positions and boundaries”
  3. Jessica Deters, Chris Gewirtz, and Marie Paretti, “Transcending or Reinforcing Disciplinary Boarders: Exploring Identity in an Interdisciplinary Graduate Program”
• Session 4 Criticality, politicization and optimism in engineering education (60 min)
  1. Darakshan Mir, “Computing Artifacts Have Politics: Implications of a Depoliticized Education in Ethics of Computing”
  2. Mohammed Baaoum, “Fostering Sustainability and Ecological Worldview in Engineering Education”
  3. Kasim Tirmizey, “Teaching engineering students social justice”
  4. Ketra Schmitt, “Optimism Treatment: Seeing the Future”
• Session 5 New approaches on design (60 min)
  1. Ian Coxon, “Exploring the contested borderland between data and meaning: Using hermeneutic phenomenology and experience-based design for insightful engineering”
  2. Mohammed Baaoum and Kristen Davis, “Demystifying the Principles, Promises, and Challenges of Participatory Design in a Humanitarian Engineering Context”
  3. Brandiff Caron, “Mobilizing STS:  Constructive Technology Assessment as Engineering Design”
• Workshops (60 min each)
  1. Workshop 1: Skye Niles, Shawhin Roudbari, Jill Harrison, Jessica Kaminsky, and Santina Contreras, “Politicizing Engineering Pasts, Envisioning Engineering Futures”
  2. Workshop 2: Amara Abdal Figueroa, “tierrafiltra, recuperando lo nuestre / a dam on a sacred site and a water filter: let the water flow macro and micro”
  3. Workshop 3: Greg Rulifson, “Designing Engineering Careers in Social Justice and Peace”
  4. Workshop 4: Caroline Baillie, Shehla Arif, Jerry McCann, and George Catalano, “Trust  – a year on”
  5. Workshop 5: Iain Hunt, Nora Reynolds, and Jordan Ermilio, “Engineering Partnerships in Development: Who Defines Success?”
  6. Workshop 6: Marissa Jablonski, “Choose Your Own Adventure in Development Engineering”
• Spoken word poem
  1. Eric Brubaker, “In being worked on: A spoken word poem”
• Panel Discussion
  1. Kari Zacharias, Elizabeth Reddy, and Skye Niles, “Ethnography, Engineering and the Space in Between”