Lassonde Prof Aleksander Czekanski elected as a Fellow of the CEEA
Dr. Aleksander Czekanski, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Lassonde School of Engineering, has been elected as a Fellow of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA).
Fellows of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA) are elected based on the candidates ongoing and sustained contributions. Professor Czekanski was elected for his research on design engineering education and contribution to engineering education society
Recruited to Lassonde as the NSERC-Quanser Chair in Design Engineering for Innovation, Professor Czekanski has been working to understand how exposure to the design engineering process can provide students with an enhanced educational experience. Under the umbrella of design engineering education, Prof. Czekanski has investigated a variety of themes ranging from the use of design competitions to improve underrepresented attributes to determining key learning outcomes for design engineering students and understanding student perceptions of the engineering practice.
A regular contributor to the CEEA, Professor Czekanski has published 9 conference papers in this area since 2015. This research has even been applied to courses at Lassonde. One conference paper took a critical look at design project scope selection for Mechanical Engineering design-spine courses. Several mechanisms that could improve the learning outcomes and experiences of the students were identified and these mechanisms have since been implemented in several MECH courses.
The importance of engineering education has extended to those that Professor Czekanski educates personally. Each member of his research group has taken this importance seriously, with three students being awarded the President’s University-Wide Teaching Assistant Award (Minha Ha, 2018; Mohamed Abdelhamid, 2019; Roger Carrick, 2020). Minha was also the recipient of the 2020 Engineering Education Award from the CEEA in recognition for the research and practices she has developed while in Professor Czekanski’s group.
Professor Czekanski is also the PI of an NSERC CREATE grant awarded in 2020, “Additive Manufacturing: Engineering Design and Global Entrepreneurship (AM-EDGE)” and co-PI of an NSERC CREATE awarded in 2021, “Smart Autonomous Robotic Technology for Earth and Space Exploration”, which has begun developing a training program for undergraduate students, graduate students and research fellows to become experts in the design and implementation of additive manufacturing technologies. He was a previous awardee of the President’s University-Wide Teaching Award, Lassonde Educator of the Year Award and the Lassonde Innovation Award for Excellence in Graduate Mentorship.
Notably, Professor Czekanski also served as President of the CEEA throughout COVID-19, working in concert with CEEA to support online learning and develop virtual workshops for the community. His service, along with numerous other engineering educators at Lassonde, has increased the profile of the School. In fact, Lassonde will host the CEEA Conference in 2022 with the theme of “Transforming Learners to Transform Our World”. This conference will aim to reimagine future educators, engineers and scientists.
This story also appeared in YFile