Assistant Professor Cheryl Bodnar Receives Grant to Develop Engineering Boot Camp

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH NEWS RELEASE

CONTACT: B. Rose Huber [412-624-4365 (office); rhuber@pitt.edu]

PITTSBURGH  (March 28, 2013) ...  Cheryl Bodnar, PhD , assistant professor of chemical and petroleum engineering in the University of Pittsburgh's Swanson School of Engineering, has been awarded an $8,000 pilot grant from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance.

The grant will help Bodnar develop an undergraduate engineering "boot camp" for Pitt students in all engineering disciplines, exposing undergraduates to the meaning of innovation through team-building exercises and gaining an appreciation of the National Academy of Engineering's "grand challenges for engineering in the 21st century," announced in 2008. Among those challenges are making solar energy affordable and restoring and improving urban infrastructure. 

Bodnar has had her research published in such professional journals as Experimental Cell Research, Biotechnology and Bioengineering, and Biotechnology Progress. Her research interests include the incorporation of active learning techniques into undergraduate courses, as, for instance, integrating game theory into the engineering curriculum. This spring semester she is utilizing the alternate reality computer game "World Without Oil" to teach students about customer-value propositions. 

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