Leah Jamieson - Engineering Projects in Community Service

In Fall 1995 Jamieson and her Purdue colleague Edward J. Coyle founded Engineering Projects in Community Service, an academic engineering design program that operates in a service-learning context. The program, which was initially offered only at Purdue, is available at present in 18 universities. It offers students from multiple disciplines with the opportunity to be part of engineering project design teams that work with nonprofit community organizations. The teams provide technological solutions to challenges faced by the community organizations and their target audiences. Examples of EPICS projects include the Spanish In Action Project at Butler University, which provides students with a web-based computer game that helps them learn Spanish vocabulary; and the Sensor Network Air Pollution Monitoring project at Drexel University that allows measurement of diesel particulate concentration in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods. For founding and administering EPICS, Jamieson has received in 2005 the Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology (with colleagues Edward J. Coyle and William C. Oakes). In 2008 the EPICS program has announced EPICS High, an extension of the program’s scope to integrate high school students in the design teams. .

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