Diefes-Dux named ASEE Fellow; Asgarpoor receives Keating Award

Heidi Diefes-Dux was named a Fellow Member and Jena Asgarpoor received the Keating Award, leading a spate of awards and honors earned by Nebraska Engineering faculty and students at the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) annual conference June 26-29 in Minneapolis.

Diefes-Dux, professor of biological systems engineering, was named an ASEE Fellow for outstanding contributions to engineering education or engineering technology education and considerable individual contributions to ASEE. Other Nebraska Engineering faculty who are ASEE Fellows include Dean Lance C. Pérez and retired faculty Donald Edwards and Russell Nelson.

Asgarpoor, director of the Master of Engineering Management program, received the Keating Award for Innovation and Leadership in Lifelong Learning in Graduate Engineering Education from ASEE Graduate Studies Division. The award is given to individuals who, over a period of time, demonstrate commitment and leadership to the division, especially in the area of professional graduate education as was demonstrated by Donald A. Keating, who epitomized the best in innovate graduate engineering education and scholarship.

Asgarpoor and Neal Lewis, assistant professor of practice in the MEM program, won the 2022 Best Paper Award from the Engineering Management Division (EMD) for their paper, "Reclaiming Engineering Management's Position Among Engineering Disciplines".

Lewis also received the 2022 Best Paper Award from the Engineering Economy Division (EED) for "Annuities as a Good Course Example." The paper was co-authored with Ted Eschenbach, professor emeritus at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Lewis and Eschenbach also co-authored a paper that won the EED Best Award at the 2021 virtual conference. That award was also presented at the 2022 conference.

Asgarpoor received the 2021 Best Presentation Award from EMD for her paper "An Integrated Platform of Active Learning Techniques in a Supply Chain Management Program" which she presented at the 2020 virtual conference. EMD chooses the Best Presentation Award at the end of each conference and presents it the following year at the Awards Banquet. Due to the pandemic, the 2020 presentations were not honored at the 2021 conference.

Biological systems engineering students Emily Stratman, who will start her senior year in Fall 2022, and master's student Kayla Ney, were honored with Second-Best Paper in the first-year division. Stratman also earned third place in another division.