Robin Adams
Robin Adams
Biography
Recipient of a 2008 NSF Career Award, a Design Studies best paper award (2003), and the Journal of Engineering Education Wickenden Award for best paper (2007), Dr. Robin Adams is a leader in researching cross-disciplinary thinking and design learning, in connecting research and practice, and in building research capacity in engineering education. She designed and hosted the 10th Design Thinking Research Symposium where researchers from around the globe and different disciplines conducted studies using a shared dataset of design review conversations in different design domains (mechanical engineering, service learning, choreography, product design, and entrepreneurship). This resulted in an edited book, Analyzing Design Review Conversations, and special issues of Design Studies and Co-Design. Dr. Adams also led the Institute for Scholarship on Engineering Education as part of the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education and was an invited participant at the 2010 National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering Education symposium. She received degrees in education (PhD), materials science and engineering (MS), and mechanical engineering (BS). She is a Professor Emerita in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University, USA.
Education
M.S., Materials Science & Engineering, University of Washington
B.S., Mechanical Engineering, California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo
Research Interests
How do you know you have learned? To answer this question you need a language of learning—a way of talking about what it means to know, be able to do, or be as a professional. You also need to understand how and why this changes over time and through experiences as a learning trajectory. If you have a language of learning you have a way to help learners self-assess their own progress, educators design and assess learning experiences, and leaders take action and shape the future of engineering education and engineering as a profession.
My research seeks to empirically develop languages for learning in areas central to the practice of engineering—design, innovation, and thinking and working across perspectives. I conduct research in: cross-disciplinary ways of thinking, acting and being, engineering design and innovation, and engineering education transformation. My research group, XRoads, conducts research at the crossroads where different perspectives connect, collide, and catalyze new ways of thinking.