It was a moment of awe watching the Hollywood reenactment of Apollo 13 engineers collaborating to design and test a device that could purge carbon dioxide from the Lunar Module that inspired a 10-year-old girl to pursue engineering. Yet it wasn’t until after years of sitting in lecture halls, trying to understand degree program requirements, and attending office hours that she realized the complex system she most wanted to impact was the one around her, the education system. Coso Strong joined the Smith School and the Systems Engineering program in July and brings with her an educational background in aerospace and systems engineering and research expertise in engineering education and complex systems design.
Coso Strong received a B.S. in aerospace engineering from MIT, an M.S. in systems engineering from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from Georgia Tech. Her postdoctoral fellowship in a center for teaching and learning and faculty career at Olin College and Florida International University have enabled her to examine and engage in curricular and course innovation in a variety of contexts.
At Cornell, Coso Strong will be kicking off her recent NSF CAREER award project to identify, learn from, and amplify the stories of educators who have developed transformational curricular designs while facing barriers that have impeded change in other contexts. Coso Strong says she is “excited to learn from and with students, faculty and staff.”