Samantha Brunhaver
Arizona State University Campus Immersion, AZ·Education Research·Early-career
Engineers' jobs keep changing. Roles shift, workplace expectations evolve, and industries pivot quickly.
- Fields
Education Research
Engineering
Psychology
- Topics
engineering education
adaptability
early career engineers
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Develop a typology of the adaptive mindsets and behaviors engineers need, through thematic analysis of critical-incident interviews with 30 early-career engineers and 15 managers in the semiconductor industry.
- Identify the catalysts and barriers early-career engineers face in being adaptable, oversampling women to examine gender-specific challenges compared with men.
- Design self-report and situational judgment instruments, scenario-based tests of how people would respond, to measure adaptability in engineering, based on the interview findings.
- Test whether publicly available online adaptability modules improve adaptability, using a delayed-treatment randomized controlled trial with 500 first- and second-year engineering students.
More about the research
Research shows engineers struggle to adapt at every career stage, from school through early career. There is also no shared language or proven way to teach and measure adaptability. This project asks what adaptability actually looks like in engineering practice, how to measure it, and how education can build it.
Why it matters
Better-prepared, adaptable engineers could help the US technical workforce, including the fast-moving semiconductor industry, keep pace with changing demands. Focusing on adaptability may also help keep more people in engineering careers, especially women and other underrepresented groups. Validated measures and free online modules could give educators and employers practical tools.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Maura Borrego
University of Texas at Austin, TX·Education Research
Extract the skills employers want from engineering master's degree holders by applying natural language processing (NLP), including generative AI, to more than a decade of engineering job postings.
Rebecca Williams
University of Maryland-Baltimore County, MD·Education Research
Identify the knowledge, skills and attitudes new software engineers and developers need in an AI-driven workplace, through semi-structured interviews with current employees and hiring decision makers.
David Lipke
Missouri University of Science and Technology, MO·Education Research
Increase degree completion among about 45 academically talented, low-income ceramic and glass engineering undergraduates at three universities by providing scholarships of up to $15,000 for up to five years.
The school
Arizona State University Campus Immersion: 36 labs on PI Pages, $1.0B a year on research, 625 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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