2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

1. Dr. Carla López del Puerto http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0334-7208 University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus [biography]

   Dr. Carla López del Puerto is a professor in the Civil Engineering Department at the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez (UPRM). She received her Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from Saint Louis University in 2009, M.S. in Construction Management from The University of Oklahoma in 2003 and B.S. in Architecture from Universidad de las Américas Puebla, México in 2000. Prior to joining UPRM, she was a designer and cost estimator for The Benham Companies, an instructor at Southern Illinois University and an assistant professor at Colorado State University. Her research agenda focuses on construction management research and construction education and training.

2. Dr. Carmen M. Bellido University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus [biography]

   As a School Psychologist professor working in the Teacher Preparation Program (TPP) since the year 2000, Dr. Bellido has taught the following courses: Human Development, Educational Psychology, Learning Evaluation; Theory and Methodology in the Teaching of History and Social Sciences; and Student Teaching of Mathematics and of Social Studies in Secondary School among others. As a collaborator in the Psychology Department, she teaches Introduction courses to School Psychology, Fundamentals of Psychology, and the grad course of Learning and Cognition. As the Institutional Coordinator for the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPRM) accreditation under the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), she directs, coordinates, and work in various committees that must complete evaluation cycles to assess the quality of the unit, the programs, teacher candidates, and alumni impact of the TPP. These evaluation cycles require a diverse toolkit of instruments, educational materials, and protocols to collect and analyze usable and useful data for monitoring and improving the TPP. Efficient and effective collection, analysis, and presentation of results to stakeholders are important parts of the work done for the TPP evaluation cycles.
   As the UPRM Center for Professional Enrichment coordinator for 12 years, Dr. Bellido was in charge of organizing faculty professional development activities. This placed her in an advantageous position to disseminate vanguard information about education, evaluation theory, and practice which can be useful for both teaching and research faculty. As the UPRM Resource Center for Education Research and Services Center (CRUISE) coordinator since 2002, she has directed and or evaluated more than twenty educational research, professional development, and outreach projects from 2002 to 2020. These educational research and service projects include higher-education ecosystems for retention and graduation of STEM scholars, project-based learning instruction, classroom action research, professional and virtual learning communities, creating online educational materials, professional development and training for pre-service and in-service teachers, professional development for higher education faculty and a major Math and Science Partnership project. CRUISE has also worked with projects serving k-20 students directly. All these projects share common themes of the creation of curricular materials and applying the latest educational research to improve the teaching-learning dynamics giving Dr. Bellido extensive experience using evaluation to improve learning strategies from primary to graduate school.

3. Prof. Oscar Marcelo Suarez http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3797-4787 University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus [biography]

   Professor Oscar Marcelo Suarez joined the University of Puerto Rico - Mayaguez in 2000. He holds a BS in Aeronautical & Mechanical Engineering (National Univ. of Cordoba, Argentina) and an MS and Ph.D. in Metallurgical Engineering from the U. Wisconsin-Madison (UW). A Fellow of ASM International and Distinguished Alumnus of UW, he is the Coordinator of the Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) graduate program (one of the few hosted by a Hispanic-serving institution) and a faculty member of the Bioengineering graduate one. He was also the director of the first Nanotechnology Center in Puerto Rico, receiving nearly $10 million from the National Science Foundation. His research areas encompass light alloys and composites for aerospace applications, biopolymeric composites for electronic, environmental, and biological uses, as well as nanoengineered concrete. His research group includes a post-doctoral fellow, four doctoral students, and four master ones from Bioengineering, MSE, and Civil and Environmental Engineering.

4. Prof. Monica Alfaro University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus
5. Dr. Manuel A. Jimenez http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4038-7102 University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus [biography]

   Dr. Jimenez is a professor at the Electrical & Computer Engineering Department in the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez (UPRM). He earned his B.S from Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in 1986, M.S. from Univ. of Puerto Rico in 1992, and Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 1999. His current teaching and reseach interests include rapid systems prototyping, electronics characterization, and engineering education. He is a senior IEEE and honorary Golden Key member.

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