The Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. School of Engineering and Science Dean's Lecture Series
The Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. School of Engineering and Science Dean’s Lecture Series brings STEM innovators and thought leaders together with students and faculty to share wisdom, inspire discovery, and nurture an entrepreneurial spirit to help build a prominent school of engineering and science.
2024 Dean's Special Lecture
LEGO® Engineering from Kindergarten to College: A 30-year Journey of Student-Driven Learning
Chris Rogers, Ph.D.
Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Tufts University
In this talk, Dr. Rogers explored how we can use research from the learning sciences to change how and what we teach in engineering, from kindergarten to graduate school. He also discussed the balance of learning what others think versus learning to think for oneself. Most importantly, he shared many pictures of what students of all ages have built when they were given a chance to engineer — building everything from robotic animals and puppets to jousting knights and robots that play musical instruments.
About the Speaker
Chris Rogers is a professor of mechanical engineering at Tufts, where he has been for at least a million years. During that time, he has done research in many different areas—from particle-laden turbulence for the NSF to wafer polishing for Intel to musical instrument engineering for Steinway and Sons to engineering education for the NSF and LEGO® (and a few other places). His most impressive accomplishments to date have been flying more than 700 parabolas on NASA’s vomit comet without getting sick, teaching his grandson to say “robot” before “mama”, and convincing his granddaughters to cause havoc whenever possible.
Past Speakers
2023 Deans Lecture Series:
Artificial Intelligence in Finance: Examples and Discussion
in partnership with Stevens Institute for Artificial Intelligence
Manuela Veloso, Ph.D.
Head of AI Research, JPMorgan Chase & Co.
2023 Special Lecture:
Technologies within Electronic Warfare at L3Harris
Jennifer Lewis
President of Electronic Warfare
Eva Bica-Winterling
General Manager, Mission Solutions, Electronic Warfare
Drew Trainor
Chief Engineer, Electronic Warfare
Paul DeLia
Director of Strategy Business Development, Electronic Warfare
2022 Dean's Lecture Series:
Transforming State-of-the-Art Science into Technologies for Global Applications
William McGann, Ph.D.
Chief Technology Officer, Quantum Computing Inc.
2020 Dean's Lecture Series:
Fighting COVID-19 with Innovation—A Race Against Time
Pam Cheng '92 M.Eng. '95
Executive Vice President for Global Operations and Information Technology, AstraZeneca
2021 Dean's Lecture Series:
BioEngineering of Human Tissues
Joe Yaccarino '88
President and CEO, MTF Biologics
2019 Dean's Lecture Series:
Breaking Human Interaction Barriers – AI, HoloLens and Beyond
Dr. Xuedong Huang
Chief Speech Scientist, Technical Fellow in Cloud and AI Lead of Speech and Language Group, Microsoft
2018 Dean's Lecture Series:
Engineering to Benefit Humanity
Dr. Robert E. Fischell
Physicist and Inventor