skip to main content


Search for: All records

Creators/Authors contains: "Evans, R."

Note: When clicking on a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number, you will be taken to an external site maintained by the publisher. Some full text articles may not yet be available without a charge during the embargo (administrative interval).
What is a DOI Number?

Some links on this page may take you to non-federal websites. Their policies may differ from this site.

  1. One intervention thought to foster women’s interest in engineering is introducing girls to STEM or engineering activities. The argument for this is that an increase in interest early in their lives will lead to more women pursuing a career in engineering. The focus of our research is women who are thriving as undergraduate student leaders in engineering project teams. We employ a multi-case study method that involves a sequence of semi-structured interviews. This paper speaks to the findings derived from the life history interview where participants describe their early lives and pre-college education. Our inductive thematic analysis of the data indicates that: (1) The women’s early familial influences allowed non-gender defined ways of being, doing, and aspiring for trying new things. (2) This re/definition of gender in relation to self is reinforced by their success in school and through their accomplishments in other extracurricular activities. Those activities were not confined or even heavily weighted toward STEM. (3) Not all of the women assumed leadership roles throughout their K-12 schooling. Nevertheless, what is common is that through academic and extracurricular engagements they developed confidence, a “can-do” attitude, and a rejection of viewing failures as defining indicators of their ability or potential. Their self-awareness, their confidence, and their persistence in the face of failure are critical because they later function as counter-narratives in the women’s encounters with sexism and other forms of marginalization when in engineering and their project teams. Finally, there is some evidence to suggest that encouraging young girls to involve themselves in STEM and/or engineering may be counterproductive. By unintentionally “pushing” these young girls into engineering, rather than “allowing them to choose for themselves,” we may be encouraging the adoption of masculinist gendered roles associated with engineering. 
    more » « less
    Free, publicly-accessible full text available June 25, 2024
  2. Nb16W5O55 emerged as a high-rate anode material for Li-ion batteries in 2018 [Griffith et al., Nature2018, 559 (7715), 556−563]. This exciting discovery ignited research in Wadsley−Roth (W−R) compounds, but systematic experimental studies have not focused on how to tune material chemistry and structure to achieve desirable properties for energy storage applications. In this work, we systematically investigate how structure and composition influences capacity, Li-ion diffusivity, charge−discharge profiles, and capacity loss in a series of niobium tungsten oxide W−R compounds: (3 × 4)-Nb12WO33, (4 × 4)-Nb14W3O44, and (4 × 5)-Nb16W5O55. Potentiostatic intermittent titration (PITT) data confirmed that Li-ion diffusivity increases with block size, which can be attributed to an increasing number of tunnels for Li-ion diffusion. The small (3 × 4)-Nb12WO33 block size compound with preferential W ordering on tetrahedral sites exhibits single electron redox and, therefore, the smallest measured capacity despite having the largest theoretical capacity. This observation signals that introducing cation disorder (W occupancy at the octahedral sites in the block center) is a viable strategy to assess multi-electron redox behavior in (3 × 4) Nb12WO33. The asymmetric block size compounds [i.e., (3 × 4) and (4 × 5) blocks] exhibit the greatest capacity loss after the first cycle, possibly due to Li-ion trapping at a unique low energy pocket site along the shear plane. Finally, the slope of the charge−discharge profile increases with increasing block size, likely because the total number of energy-equivalent Li-ion binding sites also increases. This unfavorable characteristic prohibits the large block sizes from delivering constant power at a fixed C-rate more so than the smaller block sizes. Based on these findings, we discuss design principles for Li-ion insertion hosts made from W−R materials. 
    more » « less
  3. An ongoing focus of engineering education research is on increasing the number of women in engineering. Previous studies have primarily focused on examining why the number of women enrolled in engineering colleges remains persistently low. In doing so, while we have gained better understanding of the challenges and barriers that women encountered and factors that contribute to such negative experiences, it also, as some scholars have pointed out, has cast a deficit frame on such matters. In this study, we take on a positive stand where we focus on women undergraduate students who not only “stay” but also succeed in engineering programs (that is, our definition of thriving) as a way to locate the personal and institutional factors that facilitate such positive outcomes. Our initial pilot study involved two female engineering undergraduate students at an R1 university. Each student was interviewed three times. While each of the interviews in the sequence had a slightly different focus, the overall goal was to understand the women’s autobiographic and educational experiences leading to their paths to engineering and participation in the engineering project teams. The inductive thematic analysis revealed several primary findings which subsequently played a major role in developing a codebook for the current study. Building upon what is learned from the pilot study, the current study uses a layered multi-case study design involving three institutions: a public/private Ivy League and statutory land-grand research university in the Northeast, a public land-grant research university in the Midwest, and a public land-grant research university in the Southwest which is also designated as MSI/HSI. In addition to the interview method, data collection also contains documents and artifacts. For this paper, we zone in onto the data collected in the first interviews, known as the “life history” where we mainly learn about the women undergraduate participants’ personal-familial contexts that contribute to their entry to majoring in engineering as identified by the women themselves. Preliminary findings indicate that: (1) our participants tend to have supportive families; (2) while all experienced gender biases, not everyone has formed a critical consciousness of sexism; and (3) being able to actually engage by “doing” something and creating a product is key to the women’s finding joy in engineering and associating themself with the field/profession. It is important to note that the second interviews, which focus on the educational journey of the participants in relation to engineering identity development and project team experiences, are underway. The ultimate goal for the study is to develop a theoretical framework speaking to a multifaceted model of forces (micro as autobiographic, macro as institutional, and in-between or middle-level as team-based) in shaping women’s entry and advance in engineering programs. This framework will recognize the variations in institutional type, resource availability, and structural and cultural characteristics and traditions in teams. It will also use such differences to show possibilities of more versatile ways for diversifying pathways for women and other minoritized groups to thrive in engineering. 
    more » « less
  4. An ongoing focus of engineering education research is on increasing the number of women in engineering. Previous studies have primarily focused on examining why the number of women enrolled in engineering colleges remains persistent low. In doing so, while we have gained better understanding of the challenges and barriers women encountered and factors that contribute to such negative experiences, it also, as some scholars have pointed out, has cast a deficit frame to such matters. In this study, we take on a positive stand where we focus on women undergraduate students who not only “stay” but also succeed in engineering programs (that is, our definition of thriving) as a way to locate the personal and institutional factors that facilitate such positive outcomes. Our initial pilot study involved two female engineering undergraduate students at an R1 university. Each student was interviewed three times. While each of the interviews in the sequence had slightly different focus, the overall goal was to understand the women’s autobiographic and educational experiences leading to their paths to engineering and participation in the engineering project teams. The inductive thematic analysis revealed several primary findings which subsequently played a major role in developing a codebook for the current study. Building upon what is learned from the pilot study, the current study uses a layered multi-case study design involving three institutions: a public/private Ivy League and statutory land-grand research university in the Northeast, a public land-grant research university in the Midwest, and a public land-grant research university in the Southwest which is also designated as MSI/HSI. In addition to the interview method, data collection also contains documents and artifacts. For the purpose of this paper, we zone in onto the data collected in the first interviews, known as the “life history” where we mainly learn about the women undergraduate participants’ personal-familial contexts that contribute their entry to majoring in engineering as identified by the women themselves. Preliminary findings indicate that: (1) our participants tend to have supportive families; (2) while all experienced gender biases, not everyone has formed a critical consciousness of sexism; and (3) being able to actually engage “doing” something and creating a product is key to the women’s finding joy in engineering and associating self with the field/profession. It is important to note that the second interviews are underway which focuses on the educational journey of the participants in relation to engineering identity development and project team experiences. The ultimate goal for the study is to develop a theoretical framework speaking to a multifaceted model of forces (micro as autobiographic, macro as institutional, and in-between or middle-level as team-based) in shaping women’s entry and advance in engineering programs – one that recognizes the variations in institutional type, resource availability, and structural and cultural characteristics and traditions in teams, but uses such differences to show possibilities of more versatile ways for diversifying pathways for women and other minoritized groups to thrive in engineering. 
    more » « less
  5. An ongoing focus of engineering education research is on increasing the number of women in engineering. Previous studies have primarily focused on examining why the number of women enrolled in engineering colleges remains persistent low. In doing so, while we have gained better understanding of the challenges and barriers women encountered and factors that contribute to such negative experiences, it also, as some scholars have pointed out, has cast a deficit frame to such matters. In this study, we take on a positive stand where we focus on women undergraduate students who not only “stay” but also succeed in engineering programs (that is, our definition of thriving) as a way to locate the personal and institutional factors that facilitate such positive outcomes. 
    more » « less
  6. In this presentation/publication, we focus on reporting the notion of joy as revealed in our data. The women undergraduate student participants find joy in their experience of developing and applying engineering expertise, knowing what and knowing how in response to real, tangible and challenging problems. They find knowing what and how exciting, self-rewarding and self-defining. They begin as outsiders, progress through a series of successes; having always to earn and, in some cases, demand respect. They develop an engineer’s systematic approach culminating with them claiming their identity as an engineer. If we hope to transform our gendered, raced, classed institutions, we need to learn more about women who thrive within those institutions, about the joy of doing engineering that these women experience. 
    more » « less
  7. Our work-in-progress research offers a distinctive focus and methodology. We focus is on women who are thriving in undergraduate engineering student project teams. Our methodology adopts a feminist, activist, interpretivist perspective using a multi-case study, critical sampling approach that attends to small numbers in order to learn from small numbers. Our early results suggest that these women are thriving because they experience joy in developing and applying engineering expertise, in knowing what and knowing how in response to real, tangible and challenging problems. They report that the experience is exciting, self-rewarding and self-defining. Such research can potentially change the negative discourse regarding women and engineering education with a discourse that is more welcoming and inclusive. 
    more » « less
  8. CONTEXT For the last 40 years, the aggregate number of women receiving bachelor’s degrees in engineering in the US has remained stuck at approximately 20%. Research into this “disappointing state of affairs” has established that “the [educational] institutions in which women sought inclusion are themselves gendered, raced and classed” (Borrego, 2011; Riley et al., 2015; Tonso, 2007). PURPOSE Our focus is women students who thrive in undergraduate engineering student project teams. We need to learn more about how they describe becoming an engineer, about how women come to think of themselves as engineers and about how they perform their engineering selves, and how others come to identify them as engineers (Tonso, 2006). METHODS We are guided by a feminist, activist, and interpretive lens. Our multi-case study method, i.e., three semi-structured interviews and photovoice, offers two advantages: 1) the knowledge generated by case studies is concrete and context dependent (Case and Light, 2011); 2) case studies are useful in the heuristic identification of new variables and potential hypotheses (George and Bennett, 2005). ACTUAL OUTCOMES Our preliminary results suggest these women find joy in their experience of developing and applying engineering expertise to real, tangible, and challenging problems. They find knowing-about and knowing-how exciting, self-rewarding and self-defining. Further, these women work to transform the culture or ways of participating in project teams. This transforming not only facilitates knowing-about and knowing-how; but also it creates an environment in which women can claim their expertise, their identity as engineers, and have those expertise and identities affirmed by others. CONCLUSIONS If we aim to transform our gendered, raced, classed institutions, we need to learn more about women who thrive within those institutions. We need to learn more about the joy of doing engineering that these women experience. We also need to learn more about how they create an “integration-and-learning perspective” for themselves (Ely and Thomas, 2001) and a “climate for inclusion” within those project teams (Nishii, 2012), a perspective and climate that fosters the joy of doing engineering. 
    more » « less
  9. Understanding how particle size and morphology influence ion insertion dynamics is critical for a wide range of electrochemical applications including energy storage and electrochromic smart windows. One strategy to reveal such structure–property relationships is to perform ex situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) of nanoparticles that have been cycled on TEM grid electrodes. One drawback of this approach is that images of some particles are correlated with the electrochemical response of the entire TEM grid electrode. The lack of one-to-one electrochemical-to-structural information complicates interpretation of genuine structure/property relationships. Developing high-throughput ex situ single particle-level analytical techniques that effectively link electrochemical behavior with structural properties could accelerate the discovery of critical structure-property relationships. Here, using Li-ion insertion in WO 3 nanorods as a model system, we demonstrate a correlated optically-detected electrochemistry and TEM technique that measures electrochemical behavior of via many particles simultaneously without having to make electrical contacts to single particles on the TEM grid. This correlated optical-TEM approach can link particle structure with electrochemical behavior at the single particle-level. Our measurements revealed significant electrochemical activity heterogeneity among particles. Single particle activity correlated with distinct local mechanical or electrical properties of the amorphous carbon film of the TEM grid, leading to active and inactive particles. The results are significant for correlated electrochemical/TEM imaging studies that aim to reveal structure-property relationships using single particle-level imaging and ensemble-level electrochemistry. 
    more » « less