Monica E. Cardella
SUCCEED
Office: EC 2781
Phone: 305-348-5076
Email: Monica.Cardella@fiu.edu
Biography
Monica’s STEM journey began with her love for patterns as a child and her love for playing with science at the Exploratorium. She also worked on math proofs during informal "kitchen conversations" with her dad. As an undergraduate, she majored in mathematics and minored in English. She then spent time teaching physical education to preschoolers, substitute teaching math and science at a middle school, tutoring high students and adults in English as a Second Language, and tutoring technical college students in math and ESL as part of the AmeriCorps program.
She is committed to pursuing and promoting racial justice, equity, and dignity but recognizes she still has much to learn. Monica’s research and teaching interests focus on engineering design, mathematical thinking, and computational thinking across formal and informal settings. She is particularly interested in human-centered approaches to design. Monica is also interested in what we can learn from parents and families about the ways that they support learning and engagement in engineering and other STEM activities.
She has investigated this through studies of practicing professionals, undergraduate students and educators, middle school students, elementary school teachers and students, and children and families, primarily through video analysis and open-ended interviews. This work is done in partnership, most recently with colleagues from Purdue, Imagination Station of Lafayette, the National Society for Black Engineers, TERC, University of Iowa, University of Notre Dame, University of Washington, Virginia Tech, and several elementary schools.
Selected Honors and Awards
2021 Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education Outstanding Research Paper Award: “Instructional Strategies to Promote Computational Thinking for Young Learners”
2020 Fellow, American Society for Engineering Education
2020 Lifetime Achievement Award, American Society for Engineering Education Pre-College Engineering Education Division
2019 American Society for Engineering Education 2019 President’s Award for the Engineering Gift Guide
2019 Distinguished Service Award, American Society for Engineering Education Educational Research and Methods Division
2019 Best Diversity Paper Award, American Society for Engineering Education Pre-College Division
2019 Design Studies Award for the best paper published in 2018 in Design Studies: “Timescales and Ideaspace: an Examination of Idea Generation in Design Practice”
2018 Fellow, Big Ten Academic Leadership Program, 2018-2019
2018 School of Engineering Education Graduate Student Mentoring Award, 2018.
2015 Fellow, Executive Leadership in Academic Technology and Engineering program, 2015-2016.
2014 Member of Purdue University’s Teaching Academy
2013 Purdue University’s College of Engineering Staff Awards of Excellence “Team Award” for First-Year Engineering Course Development
2011 National Science Foundation CAREER Award
2011 Purdue University’s College of Engineering Faculty Awards of Excellence “Team Award” for INSPIRE (The Institute for P-12 Engineering Research and Learning)
2008 William Elgin Wickenden Award for the best paper published in the Journal of Engineering Education: “Engineering Design Processes: A Comparison of Students and Expert Practitioners”
2006 Apprentice Faculty Grant, awarded by the Educational Research and Methods division of the American Society for Engineering Education.
Research and Educational Interests
- Engineering design, from preschool to professional practice
- Engineering learning in informal settings, particularly in the context of family interactions
- Computational thinking, particularly amongst early learners
- Assets-based approaches in STEM education
Background Education
2006 Ph.D., Industrial Engineering, University of Washington
2002 M.Sc., Industrial Engineering, University of Washington
1998 B.Sc. Mathematics, University of Puget Sound
Professional Activities
- Editor (2016-2019) of the Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research
- Chair (2015-2017) of the Educational Research and Methods Division of the American Society for Engineering Education
- Program Chair (2014-2017 ) for the Informal Learning Environments Research SIG of the American Educational Research Association
Professional Experience
- Present Director and Professor, School of Universal Computing, Construction, and Engineering Education, Florida International University
- 2019 – 2021 Professor, School of Engineering Education, Purdue University
- 2014 – 2020 Director, INSPIRE Research Institute for Pre-College Engineering, Purdue University
- 2013 – 2019 Associate Professor, School of Engineering Education, Purdue University
- 2007 – 2013 Assistant Professor, School of Engineering Education, Purdue University
- 2006-2007 National Academy of Engineering Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University
- 2005 Research Assistant, University of Washington, Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center
- 2000- 2006 Research Assistant, University of Washington, Center for Engineering Learning and Teaching
Professional Activities
- Editor (2016-2019) of the Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research
- Chair (2015-2017) of the Educational Research and Methods Division of the American Society for Engineering Education
- Program Chair (2014-2017 ) for the Informal Learning Environments Research SIG of the American Educational Research Association
Selected Publications
· Lee, Walter C., David B. Knight, and Monica E. Cardella. "Promoting Equity by Scaling Up Summer Engineering Experiences: A Retrospective Reflection on Tensions and Tradeoffs." Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER) 11, no. 1 (2021): 8.
· Ehsan, Hoda, Abeera P. Rehmat, & Monica E. Cardella, “Computational thinking embedded in engineering design: capturing computational thinking of children in an informal engineering design activity,” International Journal of Technology and Design Education (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-020-09562-5
· Rehmat, Abeera P., Hoda Ehsan, & Monica E. Cardella, “Instructional strategies to promote computational thinking for young learners,” Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, Vol 36, No. 1, 2020, 46-62.
· Cardella, Monica E., William Oakes, Nussabah A. Mulaweh & Andrew Pierce “Human-centeredness in undergraduate engineering students’ representations of engineering design,” International Journal of Engineering Education, Vol 36, No. 2, 2020 600-613.
· Lowe, Tony & Brophy, Sean & Cardella, Monica. (2019). Exploring the Definition of Computational Thinking in Research and the Classroom. Paper presented at ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium. Minneapolis, MN. 10.1145/3287324.3293842.
· Shroyer, Kathryn, Terri Lovins, Jennifer Turns, Monica E. Cardella, and Cynthia J. Atman “Timescales and Ideaspace: An Examination of Idea Generation in Design Practice” Design Studies, 2018, 28 pages, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2018.03.004
· Fletcher, T., Ross, M., Tolbert, D., Holly, J., Cardella, M., Godwin, A., DeBoer, J. (2017). Ignored potential: A collaborative roadmap for increasing African American Women in Engineering. National Society of Black Engineers, Society of Women Engineers, Women in Engineering ProActive Network
· Purzer, Şenay, Johannes Strobel and Monica E. Cardella (Eds.) Engineering in Pre-College Settings: Research, Policy and Practices, Purdue University Press, 2014.
· Cardella, Monica E. “Which Mathematics Should We Teach Engineering Students? An Empirically-Grounded Case for Mathematical Thinking” Teaching Mathematics and its Applications, Vol 27, No. 3, 2008, p. 150-159.
· Atman, Cynthia J., Robin S. Adams, Monica E. Cardella, Jennifer Turns, Susan Mosborg, and Jason Saleem, “Engineering Design Processes: A Comparison of Students and Expert Practitioners”, the Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 96, No. 4, 2007, p. 359-379.