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<p>  </p> <p>The symbolic reference to being in the “beyond” captures how individuals occupying the hybrid space create identities and cultures that extend beyond the dominant pathways recognized in engineering. The fundamental understanding of the cultural theory suggests that hybridity emerges when two cultural identities overlap that were previously discrete. Scholarship focused on hybridity emerged from studies centered on racial, ethnic, and gender identity and has progressed to examine hybridity in learning environments. I draw on fundamental understandings of hybridity to examine how an interdisciplinary engineering program reflects a hybrid space. </p> <p>This dissertation employed an ethnographic case study approach to investigate the following overarching research question: How is the interdisciplinary engineering program characterized as a hybrid space? The corresponding research questions examine how the interdisciplinary engineering programs shape students’ identities, agency, and belonging and what considerations faculty make concerning students identity development, belonging, and agency in the classroom? This study involved the analysis of three streams of interview data and supporting evidence from site documents retrieved from participants and publicly available sources. </p> <p>This within-case analysis resulted in the emergence of four categories of hybrid spaces—a) structural, b) cultural, c) physical, and d) pedagogical. The structural category represents how the interdisciplinary engineering program reflects a hybrid space through its policies, people, and resources. The cultural category represents how the interdisciplinary engineering program reflects a hybrid culture through its core values. The physical category represents how the interdisciplinary engineering program reflects a hybrid space through students’ access and navigation across multiple curricular and co-curricular spaces. The pedagogical category is concerned with the opportunity structures present in the curricular spaces enabling students to author and negotiate their identity as interdisciplinary engineers. Most importantly, the pedagogical category illustrates how the structural, cultural, and physical categories coalesce. By understanding this interdisciplinary engineering program, these insights can provide transferable lessons to new and emerging programs. </p>

The primary goal of this mixed method study is to investigate and analyze how the nature and structure of the widely accepted middle school and teaming models impact individual teacher efficacy as well as collective efficacy. I examined the implications of these models on the levels of efficacy for both teamed and non-teamed teachers. Both social cognitive theory and belonging theory informed the research study. The mixed method study was conducted at seven suburban middle schools in four districts outside of a major city in the northeastern section of the country. Each middle school utilizes the teaming model as the focal point of their philosophy. Research data were gathered from volunteer teachers through the administration of an online 37-item survey and voluntary individual follow-up interviews. In addition, principal interviews served to give background and cultural information at the building level. Themes from survey data informed the interview protocol. A review of historical documents provided additional information. The data were analyzed and themes were extracted in order to provide recommendations for these particular middle schools. Based on the collected data, teachers working at the middle school level can experience varying levels of both individual teacher and collective efficacy based on teaching position and experience. Implications for further research in the area of teacher and collective efficacy at the middle school level are noted. / Educational Administration

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Engineering undergraduate students have opinions and perceptions of engineering disciplines and engineering undergraduate students do not always matriculate and graduate in precisely the same discipline. Understanding how these two characteristics of engineering undergraduate students interact to inform behaviors is important for engineering educators and administrators to increase and improve recruitment and retention among their students. This dissertation approached each characteristic of engineering students, first separately and then together. A nationwide survey of undergraduate engineering students found significant differences in how students perceive various engineering disciplines along several paired-term anchored scales. These differences were equally significant when scores were considered in terms of discipline-membership. Membership was found to lead to higher scores for Difficulty and Friendliness compared to scores of non-members for any given specific discipline. Using historical data, transfer paths of students into, out of, or within engineering were identified by frequency of occurrence as either the origin of a transfer or the destination of a transfer. Industrial Engineering was found to be considerably more frequently experienced as a destination of transfers, regardless of whether the origin degree program was another engineering discipline or from outside of engineering. Conversely, Aerospace Engineering was considerably more frequently experienced as an origin of transfers. Additionally, the transfer path relationship between Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering was investigated. Combining these two characteristics of engineering students—that of having opinions of engineering disciplines and that of having the potential to transfer between degree programs— an ethnographic research methodology was implemented. Factors unrelated to grade performance were identified as common program-change instigators, including personal interest considerations and predicted career opportunities. Ultimately, this dissertation contributes to an understanding of how perceptions of engineering disciplines and degree program transfer behavior affects undergraduate engineering student experiences.

Water is a critical resource that is essential for human well-being and economic development. Many regions around the world face ongoing water scarcity and competition over water resources. Climate change, other drastic social changes, and population and economic growth can significantly impact the supply and consumption of water. There has been an increasing body of research focusing on the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus. There is a mismatch between the spatial resolution of data availability and the resolution that water resources follow. Lack of quality sub-county water data also makes the research of micro-level food-water dynamics difficult if not impossible. These challenges pose obstacles to the further understanding of water scarcity in the context of the FEW nexus and leaves critical gaps in the research of the nexus. In this dissertation I asked and answered the question: how do socio-economic forces shape localized groundwater depletion and surface water scarcity within the United States at the field and basin scale? Specifically, I tested whether irrigated farm size leads to reduction in groundwater application per unit area and whether an increase in the annual depletion in the underlying aquifer storage increases the probability of an irrigated land transfer, with a Kansas field level dataset and an econometrics approach. I estimated the FEW production and the water footprint of FEW production in every US watershed and compare the water footprint of production against their water scarcity. Then the groundwater reserves and dam storage in watersheds were examined as the buffers for the watersheds' FEW production against water shortages. I mapped the transfers of FEW goods and services and both the virtual and physical water flows from watersheds to US cities. The transportation infrastructure and other infrastructure that supports the FEW transfers are analyzed in terms of their contributions to the movement of FEW goods. This dissertation improves our understanding of how broad structural changes within the agricultural industry are interconnected with the overexploitation of groundwater resources. It is the first study of water footprint accounting with the most recent input data for the whole US food-energy-water system at the watershed level and includes an analysis of cities' infrastructure reliance for food-energy-water transfers and infrastructure as buffers. The transfers of virtual water and physical water were compared. The resulting data and findings from the novel data synthesis will provide insights for consumers, food companies, and other decision-makers at various levels on their connection to water resources in non-local areas. The outcomes of this dissertation will also improve our ability to analyze drivers and solutions to local small-scale watershed water scarcity challenges and allow a quantifiable basis for policy support in the water resources management domain and beyond. / Doctor of Philosophy / Water is an important resource for humans and the economy, but many regions around the world face ongoing water shortages and competition over the limited water resources. The Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus has gained increasing attention as a framework for understanding the complex relationships between water, food, and energy systems. However, research in this area has faced challenges in data availability and data resolution. This dissertation addresses these challenges while exploring how socio-economic forces shape localized groundwater depletion and surface water scarcity within the United States at the field, basin, and city scales. The author tests hypotheses related to irrigated farm size, irrigation water use, groundwater depletion, and the irrigated land transfers. The author estimates the FEW production and water footprint of production in every US watershed. The author also tracks and analyzes the transfers of FEW goods and services and embedded water footprint. Infrastructure's role in delivering FEW goods and buffering against water shortages were also examined. Overall, this dissertation provides insights into the connections between water resources and broad structural changes within the food system, and offers a novel data synthesis that can facilitate the understanding of connections between production and consumption of FEW at various spatial scales and water resources in local and non-local areas. The findings will also help analyze the drivers and solutions to local small-scale watershed's water scarcity challenges, and provide a quantifiable basis for policy support in the water resources management domain and beyond.

The present study seeks to advance understanding of intragroup trust and team diversity. The dynamic interrelationships between intragroup trust, information sharing, and performance were examined over feedback cycles in interdisciplinary and homogeneous teams. In a three-hour lab session, participants completed a management simulation task in teams of four. Performance feedback was administered and process variables were measured periodically throughout the task. Several hypotheses were posed predicting differences between team type as well as the dynamic influence of performance feedback on the nature of trust. Findings both add to knowledge about the development of trust as well as point to future research directions. Although trust displayed an overall positive linear trend independent of team type, Cycle 1 performance feedback contributed to the trust trajectory. Additionally, considerations for operationalizations of information sharing and team performance are discussed in light of findings. / Master of Science

Aquatic environments contain a great diversity of microorganisms, some of which may be aerosolized and transported long distances through the atmosphere. The bacterium Pseudomonas syringae can be found in aquatic environments and in the atmosphere and may express an ice nucleation protein (bacteria expressing the protein are Ice+ and bacteria not expressing the protein are Ice-). Ice+ bacteria may be involved in cloud formation and precipitation processes due to their ability to freeze water at warmer temperatures. Freshwater aerosolization processes are not well understood, particularly the role the Ice+ phenotype may play. Water samples were collected from Claytor Lake, Virginia, USA and screened for Ice+ P. syringae. Results indicated that between 6% and 15% of Pseudomonas colonies assayed were Ice+. Preliminary phylogenetic analysis of cts (citrate synthase) sequences from strains of P. syringae showed a surprising diversity of phylogenetic subgroups present in the lake. A Collison nebulizer was used to aerosolize an Ice+ and an Ice- strain of P. syringae under artificial laboratory conditions. The aerosolization of P. syringae was not influenced by water temperature between 5° and 30°C. In general, the culturability (viability) of P. syringae in aerosols increased with temperature between 5 and 30°C. The Ice+ strain was aerosolized in greater numbers than the Ice- strain at all temperatures studied, suggesting a possible connection between the Ice+ phenotype and aerosol production. A quantitative empirical assessment of aerosolized droplets was generated using a laboratory flume and high-speed video. Droplet diameter and initial velocity upon leaving the water surface were examined at four wind speeds (3.5, 4.0, 4.5, and 5.0 m/s), and the results showed that droplet diameter and velocity had a gamma distribution and droplet mass flux increased exponentially with wind speed. An estimate of the potential amount of bacteria capable of aerosolizing was made for each wind speed. An interdisciplinary unit for advanced high school students has been developed presenting biological aerosolization and ice nucleation. This interdisciplinary work combines modeling and experimental approaches across biology and engineering interfaces, with the goal of increasing our understanding of microbial aerosols from aquatic environments that may impact our planet's water cycle. / Ph. D.