Industrial Engineering
 

Cynthia J. Atman

Director of the Center for Engineering Learning and Teaching
Director of the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education
Mitchell T. Bowie and Lella Blanche Bowie Endowed Chair

Phone: (206) 616-2171
Fax: (206) 221-3161
Email: atman@engr.washington.edu

BACKGROUND

Professor Atman joined the department in 1998 after seven years on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh.  She has five years of industrial experience.

SCHOLARLY PURSUITS

Research Area: Dr. Atman's area of expertise is in engineering education. Her research focuses on engineering design learning, students as emerging engineering professionals, assessment of engineering learning and the use of education research results in the classroom to improve student learning. In her research program on engineering design she employs research methods from cognitive engineering to document engineering student and expert design processes. More detail can be found at http://depts.washington.edu/celtweb/research/

Selected Publications:
Atman, Cynthia J., Monica E. Cardella, Jennifer Turns, Robin S. Adams, "Comparing Freshmen and Senior Engineering Design Processes: An In Depth Follow-up Study," Design Studies, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 325-357, July 2005.

Turns, Jennifer, Cynthia J. Atman, Robin S. Adams, and Theresa Barker. "Research on Engineering Student Knowing: Trends and Opportunities". Journal of Engineering Education, Invited Paper in Special Issue, pp. 27-41, January 2005.

Adams, Robin S., Jennifer Turns and Cynthia J. Atman. "Educating Effective Engineering Designers: The Role of Reflective Practice", Design Studies, Special Issue on Designing in Context, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 275-294, 2003. This paper received the annual Design Studies Best Paper Award for 2003.

Turns, J., Robin S. Adams, Angela Linse and Cynthia J. Atman. "Bridging from Research to Practice in Undergraduate Engineering Design Education", International Journal of Engineering Education, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 379-390, November 2003.

Safoutin, Michael, Cynthia J. Atman, Robin S. Adams, Teodora Rutar Shuman, John Kramlich, and Jim Fridley, "A Design Attribute Framework for Course Planning and Learning Assessment," IEEE Transactions on Education, Special Issue on Assessment, vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 164-173, May 2000.

Atman, Cynthia J., Justin R. Chimka, Karen M. Bursic, and H. L. Nachtmann, "A Comparison of Freshman and Senior Engineering Design Processes," Design Studies, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 131-152, March 1999.

Atman, Cynthia J. and Karen M. Bursic, "Documenting a Process: The Use of Verbal Protocol Analysis to Study Engineering Student Design," Journal of Engineering Education, Special Issue on Assessment, pp. 121-132, April 1998.

Bursic, Karen M. and Cynthia J. Atman, "Information Gathering: A Critical Step for Quality in the Design Process," Quality Management Journal, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 60-75, July 1997.

Selected Presentations:
Atman, Cynthia J., "Portraying Engineering Design Expertise: Empirical Insights". Invited Keynote Address, First International Computing Education Research Workshop. October 1, 2005.

Atman, Cynthia J. and Jennifer Turns "Learning Engineering" Invited presentation at the NSF Research, Evaluation and Communication series on Research on Learning in the Disciplines, Washington, DC, April 27, 2005.

Atman, Cynthia J., Jennifer Turns, Lorraine Fleming. "Learning Science Research Applied to Engineering," American Society for Engineering Education Workshop, June 2005.

For more details: See her curriculum vita.

UNDERGRADUATE TEACHING

GRADUATE TEACHING