4/10/2023 William Gillespie 3 min read
Molly Goldstein is the recipient of the 2023 Collins Award for Innovative Teaching.
Written by William Gillespie
Molly Goldstein is the recipient of the 2023 Collins Award for Innovative Teaching. This award recognizes outstanding development or use of new and innovative teaching methods. W. Leighton Collins was a faculty member in the College of Engineering from 1929-65 and executive director of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). As a pioneer and leader in ASEE, Collins helped shape engineering instruction in the United States. This award recognizes outstanding development or use of new and innovative teaching methods
Goldstein is an ISE alumna, who received her B.S. in General Engineering (now SED) in 2004 and M.S. in Systems and Entrepreneurial Engineering in 2006. She worked in industry before pursuing a PhD in Engineering Education at Purdue. She joined the ISE faculty in 2018.
Goldstein brings a research-driven but very creative spin on the foundational Systems Engineering class which is taken by students across The Grainger College of Engineering.
In the back of Goldstein's Product Development Lab is a door that hasn't been used in over a decade. Stenciled to the glass are the words General Engineering Drawing, the name of the historic department that would grow to become ISE. Systems Engineering and Design began as a program of instruction in drawing, which was, before CAD, synonymous with communication in engineering. Today, Goldstein continues to teach hand-drawing as part of her curriculum, because research shows that the motion of drawing opens particular pathways in the brain.
But teaching hand-drawing doesn't mean Goldstein's class is a throwback to the golden era of the slide rule, as Goldstein is also one of the first engineering faculty in America to teach generative design to undergraduate students. Quite unlike hand-drawing, generative design uses computation and AI to automate parts of the design process.
To pursue this interest, Goldstein is co-recipient of an NSF grant "Educating Generative Designers in Engineering", which has so far resulted in two published works and four in review. Two of the papers were co-authored with students.
With her friend and mentor Jim Leake, Goldstein has produced a new edition of a textbook: Engineering Design Graphics, Third Edition, published by Wiley and Sons (2022). This textbook is the third best-selling in its category, with domestic and international adoption. The new edition also addresses Generative Design.
ISE is lucky to have such an knowledgeable and gifted teacher, and we applaud her recognition.