Navigating the barriers to interdisciplinary design education: Lessons learned from the NSF Design Workshop Series

Timothy W. Simpson, Matthew Parkinson, Dave Celento, Wei Chen, Ann McKenna, Ed Colgate, Don Norman, Panos Papalambros, Richard Gonzalez, Bernard Roth, Larry Leifer

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

Evidence suggests that transformational innovation occurs at the intersection of multiple disciplines rather than isolated within them. Design-being both pervasive and inherently interdisciplinary-has the power to transcend many disciplines and help break down the departmental "silos" that hinder such collaborative efforts. Many universities are now struggling to embrace the curricular innovations that are necessary to achieve and sustain interdisciplinary education. Given the already packed undergraduate engineering curricula, several universities have started to offer new design programs that span several disciplines at the masters and doctoral levels. In this paper, we examine the five interdisciplinary graduate design programs offered by three different universities-University of Michigan, Northwestern University, and Stanford University-that hosted the NSF Design Workshop Series in 2008-2009. Collectively, these programs represent "solutions" that span a variety of graduate degree offerings that are available and provide examples of ways to successfully navigate the barriers and hurdles to interdisciplinary design education. A recap of the NSF Design Workshop Series is also provided along with recommendations from the workshops to foster discussion and provide directions for future work.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationASME 2010 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, IDETC/CIE2010
Pages627-637
Number of pages11
DOIs
StatePublished - 2010
EventASME 2010 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, IDETC/CIE2010 - Montreal, QC, Canada
Duration: Aug 15 2010Aug 18 2010

Publication series

NameProceedings of the ASME Design Engineering Technical Conference
Volume6

Other

OtherASME 2010 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, IDETC/CIE2010
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityMontreal, QC
Period8/15/108/18/10

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Modeling and Simulation
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Navigating the barriers to interdisciplinary design education: Lessons learned from the NSF Design Workshop Series'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this