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1. A Community of Practice Approach to Integrating Professional Skills Training with Graduate Thesis Research

   Jiang, S; Gansemer-Topf, A; Reuel, N; Okudan-Kremer, G; Li, Q; Mort, R. (October 2020, ASEE North Midwest Section Annual Conference 2020)

   null (Ed.)

   Background. It is well recognized that current graduate education is too narrowly focused on thesis research. Graduate students have a strong desire to gain skills for their future career success beyond thesis research. This obvious gap in professional skill training in current graduate study also leads to the common student perception that professional skills beyond academic knowledge should only be gained after completion of thesis research. Purpose. A new program is being developed to rigorously integrate professional skills training with thesis research. The approach is to establish learning communities of Graduates for Advancing Professional Skills (GAPS) to incorporate project management skill training from industry into academic research. The GAPS program seeks to address two fundamental education research questions: How can project management skill training be integrated with thesis research in graduate education? What is the role/value of learning communities in enhancing the training and retention of professional skills and the effectiveness of thesis research? Our proposed solution is that graduate student learning communities engaging in a blended online and classroom approach will promote learning of professional skills such as project and time management in thesis research activities. The purpose of this session is to establish the connection between project management and thesis research, and demonstrate the beginning progress of the GAPS program towards. Methodology/approach. The following progress is being made to establish GAPS learning communities through which to teach and practice professional skills. A website has been developed to introduce the program, recruit participants, provide information on the online modules, and survey results of participants’ current levels of knowledge and skills related to project management. A new course, “Introduction of Project Management for Thesis Research”, has been added to the course catalog and open to enrollment for students from different majors. In addition, learning modules including project charter, scheduling, communication, teamwork, critical path method, and lean concept are developed. Case studies and examples have been developed to help students learn how to utilize project management skills in their thesis research. Conclusions. The concept of integrating professional skills training with thesis research through learning communities has been demonstrated. There are multiple advantages of this approach, including efficient utilization of the current resources, and faculty buy-in. Preliminary data from the first cohort are being collected and analyzed to identify students’ needs, benefits of the program, and areas of improvement for future cohort iterations. Implications. The GAPS program will improve professional skill training for graduate students through communities of practice. This new learning model has the potential to fundamentally change the culture of graduate education. We believe the method demonstrated here can be broadly applied to different engineering majors, and even broadly to all thesis research. 

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2. Redesigning US STEM Doctoral Education to Create a National Workforce of Technical Leaders

   Jain, H.; Dierolf, V.; Jagota, A.; Pan, Z.; Urban, N. (June 2023, ASEE annual conference exposition proceedings)

   The knowledge and technologies that move our society forward and preserve our international competitive advantage rely upon a highly skilled workforce that is adept at conducting complex scientific and technical research—and in translating its outcome into useful products and services. “Use-inspired” research is driven by specific needs and interests and naturally focuses on socioeconomically advantageous application, whereas academic research tends to be driven by an intrinsic quest for new knowledge. Each has its role in overall technological development, however, the skills and knowledge crucial for success in these domains can differ significantly. To integrate these two approaches in doctoral training in STEM fields, a national workshop of ~100 leaders of industry, academia, funding agencies and non-profits was held with the goal of developing a robust understanding of the current status of the pipeline from graduate degree programs in STEM into professional research environments. At the conclusion, the Workshop participants identified gaps in the present training of STEM doctorates. Then they endorsed the Pasteur Partners PhD (P3) track recently established at Lehigh University as a new model for student-centered workforce training based on use-inspired research in partnership with industry. Here, we present the key outcomes of the workshop and describe the four distinctive features of the P3 program: 1. Pre-program summer internship; 2. Co-advising of students by a university faculty member and an industry researcher; 3. Instructions for developing essential professional skills; 4. Industry Residency (as in medical school). In this context, ‘Industry’ is defined broadly to include private corporations, national labs, defense organizations, healthcare institutes, etc., which hire PhDs. Collectively, we consider this as a model for the much needed redesigning of the US STEM doctoral education to create a national workforce of technical leaders. Finally, challenges to the implementation of the P3 track are identified. Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. https://peer.asee.org/44062 

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3. Identify and Compare Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities Needed in Semiconductor Graduate Education from an Academic and Industrial Perspective

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--59863  

   Jackson, Nathan; Kang, S Pil; Bandara, Nisansala; Pleil, Matthias (June 2026, ASEE Conferences)

   There is a high demand to increase job readiness in the semiconductor/microsystems manufacturing area, especially for graduate students (MS/PhD) as they are expected to add value to the company much sooner than undergraduates which require longer onboarding. This difference in onboarding time causes the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA’s) to be significantly different between undergraduates and graduate students. Current engineering graduate academic education is focused on enhancing research experience such as technical writing, experimentation, and research methodology, however it does not fully prepare students for industrial work experience. Currently, the primary method for students to obtain work experience is via internship, but this is not always possible due to location and time constraints, citizenship status, academic research requirements, and limited positions available. Therefore, graduate students often struggle with transitioning from an academic setting (research oriented) to an industry environment, because students and most faculty have limited industrial work experience. The first step to overcoming this challenge is to identify key KSA’s that graduate students are expected to have upon starting a job in the semiconducting/microsystems manufacturing area. Since this complex multidisciplinary area of manufacturing is constantly evolving KSA’s are likely to have changed over the past decade, however our pedagogical methods to teaching the subjects have not changed. To identify the KSA’s desired upon graduation we conducted a survey (n=47 previous identified KSA’s) with both industry members and engineering faculty members. KSA topics included essential skills, technical skills, fabrication skills, design knowledge, statistics, emerging skills, and management. Industrial panel members consisted of a diverse range of engineers working in the semiconductor/microsystem manufacturing area from junior and senior process engineers to managers, and members were from multinational companies and small start-up companies. Engineering faculty are active researchers who graduated MS/PhD working in semiconducting area within the past five years. The survey allowed the industry panel to state what KSA’s were important and what KSA’s they thought Universities already do a good job of teaching to graduate students. The results demonstrate that the industry panel identified 40.4% of the KSA’s that were mentioned as important and currently lacking in recent graduate student hires. The survey illustrated that 59.6% of potential KSA’s were deemed either not critically necessary or new employees already had these skills, meaning universities already do a sufficient job of teaching these KSA’s to students. However, engineering faculty said 58.33% of the KSA’s were needed and not currently taught. This shows a strong discrepancy between what Professors think industry members need and what industry members consider necessary. One example is faculty thought students lacked essential skills whereas the industry panel was satisfied with current essential skills from graduate students. Another example is statistical analysis where industry members highlighted a strong need, but faculty thought students had these skills. The results of this study will be beneficial to faculty in developing new pedagogical methods to better prepare students for transitioning from academia to the semiconductor industry and demonstrate a strong need for industrial opinion when designing curriculum. 

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4. Development of a Novel Graduate Pedagogy to Enhance Job Readiness in Semiconductor Education Based on Role-Playing Internship Experience

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--55042  

   Jackson, Nathan; Kang, Pil (March 2025, ASEE Conferences)

   Not AvailableWith a high demand to fill jobs in the semiconductor manufacturing due to the Chips Act there is a need to increase job readiness in graduate education, as industry members think current graduate students are not well prepared to transition from academia to industry. Current graduate academic education pedagogy does an excellent job of providing students with knowledge and scientific skills, such as technical writing and communication. However, current graduate education often does not fully prepare students for industry. Students can get the necessary experience through an internship, but this is not always possible due to location, research time constraints, citizenship, and academic time commitments. Students often struggle with transitioning from an academic setting to industry, because they have only ever experienced academia, and most faculty teaching students have little or not experience working in industry. To overcome this challenge, we developed a novel two course curriculum that aims to mimic a semiconductor industry internship. This is accomplished through “role-playing” courses where students act as internships in the 1st semester (onboarding) and then they transition to employees in the second semester, where they will work with other “students/employees” on creating a “startup” microsystem company. The instructors act as Program Managers/ boses. The courses use problem-based learning (PBL) in a nanofabrication cleanroom. The courses are designed to give students hands-on experience to provide them with the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) that are needed in industry. The key KSA’s were determined by an industrial panel of process engineers via a survey which was used to determine which KSA industry (multinational and SME) value the most. The same survey was given to faculty members to compare differences between what faculty and industry value as critical KSA’s needed in the semiconductor industry. To determine where the gaps were between traditional graduate courses and industry a survey listing 48 different KSA’s was provided to both industrial members and engineering faculty. The survey allowed the industry panel to state what KSA’s were important and what KSA’s they thought Universities already do a good job of teaching to graduate students. The initial results showed that the industry panel thought 37.5% of the KSA’s were important and lacking in current graduate education. That means 63.5% of the KSA’s were either not important or that universities already do a good job of teaching those KSA’s. However, engineering faculty said 58.33% of the KSA’s were needed and not currently taught. This shows a strong discrepancy between what Professors think and what industry consider necessary KSA’s. The KSA topics were divided into categories and the ones with the largest discrepancy between faculty and industry were essential skills and statistics. The results of this study will be beneficial to other programs that wish to provide similar experiences for their graduate students. 

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5. Experimental skills for undergraduate career preparation in quantum information science and engineering

   https://doi.org/10.1103/56hq-4pns  

   El-Adawy, Shams; Piña, A R; Zwickl, Benjamin M; Lewandowski, H J (August 2026, Physical Review Physics Education Research)

   The growth of the quantum information science and engineering (QISE) industry has increased interest in how undergraduate programs prepare students for careers in this field. Prior research emphasizes the value of experiential learning as preparation for the quantum industry but lacks specificity regarding the experimental skills needed for positions available to bachelor’s degree graduates. In this study, we investigate the experimental skills associated with bachelor’s-level quantum industry positions through 44 semistructured interviews with quantum industry professionals. Guided by the American Association of Physics Teachers recommendations for the undergraduate physics laboratory curriculum, we characterize the experimental skills associated with positions described as requiring bachelor’s-level preparation and thematically synthesize them into four categories: instrumentation, computation and data analysis, experimental and project design, and communication and collaboration. We further examine how these skills cluster across role types and articulate them as learning goals to provide guidance for educators interested in aligning undergraduate instruction with the needs of students wanting to pursue a career in the quantum industry. Our findings suggest the need to emphasize the discussion of hardware in QISE theory courses, expand experimental training through instructional laboratories, and intentionally integrate professional skills in undergraduate QISE education. 

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