New Directions for Chemical

Engineering

9
Training and Fostering the
Next Generation of Chemical Engineers

 Chemical engineers are in high demand across most professions and job
The chemical
levels, engineering
and chemical curriculum
engineering providestoday
an provides
excellent afoundation
robust foundation
for manyof
tools and practices
career paths. founded in an understanding of systems and molecular-level
phenomena, including fundamental
 The undergraduate concepts of curriculum
chemical engineering mass and energy balances,
has served transport
the discipline
phenomena, ther- modynamics, reaction engineering, control, and separations.
well and has continued to evolve in response to scientific discoveries, Although
the coretechnolog-
subjects of
icalthe curriculum
advances, and were first
societal built around manufacturing processes,
needs.
primarily petrochemi- cal, they can be applied
 Educational attainment in chemical engineering in mostforfields and and
women professions. Indeed,
Black, Indige-
previousnous,
chapters have highlighted
and People how these
of Color (BIPOC) concepts has
individuals can remained
be and have been applied
essentially un-
across a wide variety of applications in energy, environmental sustainability, health and
medicine; manufacturing; and materials development. As a result, chemical engineers
are in high demand across most professions and job levels, and chemical engineering
provides an excellent back- ground for many career paths (NAE, 2018; see Figure 9-1).
In the past, chemical engineers tended to find industrial employment in
manufac- turing and process engineering. The connections between basic research and
the work- place were usually made through industrial research and development (R&D)
organiza- tions that were aligned with internal business units with needs for both
operational efficiency and new products or process developments. Chemical engineers
would often begin a career in R&D or manufacturing and move, over time, into senior
technical and business leadership positions. Faculty members would engage with
industry as consult- ants and through university–industry collaborations. The net result
of that model was a feedback loop from the market back to basic research at universities.
More recently, a strong shift in academic research topics in the field has
occurred, driven primarily by changes in federal funding priorities, leading to a
movement away from process research and toward basic and applied scientific research.
This discovery- focused research includes areas, such as materials and life sciences,
relatively new to chemical engineering. At the same time, many companies have
globalized, shortened their time horizons, and reduced or eliminated longer-term
research programs and laboratories.

226

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New Directions for Chemical
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Training and Fostering the Next Generation of Chemical Engineers 227

The resultant growing gap between university research and market needs is often
referred to as the “valley of death.”
During the past decade, the world has undergone a major technology-led transi-
tion enabled by global networks, computing power, sensors, artificial intelligence, and
machine learning. This transition will continue and likely accelerate, creating an
ongoing need for new skills and capabilities. As technology continues to transform how
work is performed, a growing need for collaboration skills—in communication,
interdisciplinary teamwork, and project management—can be anticipated, as can
educational needs yet to be identified. And all of these trends will require lifelong
learning.
This chapter examines the current state of chemical engineering education, in-
cluding the broader context of the existing academic education model (Box 9-1) and the
value of the current undergraduate core curriculum. The committee proposes strategies
for growing and diversifying the profession—both of which are essential to the field’s
survival and potential for impact—by making it more broadly accessible. 1 Following a
discussion of the aspects of undergraduate and graduate education that will need to
change to prepare the next generation of chemical engineers, the chapter turns to
emerging trends that are shaping new models of learning and innovation for the future.

FIGURE 9-1 Career paths available to chemical engineers in a range of industries, shown here
with median salary in industry categories with at least 30 respondents to an American Institute of
Chemical Engineers salary survey. SOURCE: AIChE (2021).

1
E.g., https://www.aiche.org/chenected/2021/02/ideal-path-equity-diversity-and-inclusion.

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228 New Directions for Chemical Engineering

BOX 9-1
The Existing Academic Education Model

Academic institutions are tasked with three important societal responsibilities—education,

research, and service—whose fulfillment has long brought, and will continue to bring, tremen-
dous societal benefit. A simple “mass and energy balance” of U.S. universities is shown in the
figure below.
Undergraduate education and graduate research and education are two distinct but con-
nected functions of research universities. Undergraduate programs collectively receive more
than $100 billion in tuition and state support for public institutions, and produce about 2
million college graduates each year (Atkinson, 2018; Kastner, 2018; NCES, 2021; NCSES,
2020; The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2019). More than 30 percent of the U.S. population over age
25 has a college degree (U.S. Census Bureau, 2019b), putting the United States among the top
coun- tries—but not at the top—in the number of college graduates per capita. The increasing
costs of and inequities in access to education are major challenges that require attention to
ensure that universities meet the societal needs of the future. In this regard, the widespread use
of remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic may offer models for educational practice,
while po- tentially improving access and decreasing cost.

A “mass and energy balance” of U.S. research universities showing the flow of funding
streams and various outputs of graduates and research results. Data from Atkinson (2018),
Kastner (2018), NCES (2021), NCSES (2020), The Pew Charitable Trusts (2019).

Graduate students are less numerous than undergraduates. Annually, about 700,000 stu-
dents graduate with a master’s degree, and about 35,000 with a PhD; about 1 percent of the
U.S. population holds a PhD (NCSES, 2018; U.S. Census Bureau, 2019a). Since the mid-
1970s, graduate research in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields
has been funded primarily by federal grants, although the relative fiscal contributions of
philanthropy and industry to academic research are growing at some institutions.

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New Directions for Chemical
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Training and Fostering the Next Generation of Chemical Engineers 229

Chemical engineers with PhDs have driven research and development (R&D) in a variety
of fields, including energy, water, food, health, and biotechnology. In the field of
biotechnology, they have played a significant role in advances that include antibody design,
biologics manufac- turing, cell therapies, nanotechnology, nucleic acid therapeutics, and tissue
engineering, among others. Collectively, the biotechnology/pharma industry accounts for a
productivity of just over
$1 trillion/year—an achievement not possible without the graduate education provided by uni-
versities. A fraction of graduating PhDs in chemical engineering pursue careers in academia
and support the growth of the undergraduate education enterprise. These two career paths
together support a clear and important connection between graduate education in the field and
society at large.
Generally speaking, PhD programs in chemical engineering focus on teaching graduate
stu- dents how to conceptualize and carry out research by using an individual research project
as a training ground. The output at the end of the degree program encompasses both trained
research- ers and the products of their research (frequently in the form of published papers). A
third key outcome of graduate research and education is invention, captured tangibly in
patents. U.S. uni- versities account for about 6,000 granted U.S. patents each year,
representing about 4 percent of the total annual patent output in the United States (NSB, 2018;
USPTO, 2021).
Recent years have seen a growing interest among both students and faculty in
championing the translation of academic ideas into practice. There are many successful
examples of commer- cialization of academic inventions driven by the entrepreneurial
enthusiasm and expertise of their inventors. However, sole reliance on the business skills of
individual inventors signifi- cantly limits the efficiency of translation and will certainly leave
many important inventions behind. Thus it is important for universities to complement and
collaborate, rather than compete, with industry. Academic–industry consortia provide a natural
opportunity not only to support academic research but also to bring inventions into the
marketplace and bring professional man- agers to spin-off companies. Universities can
improve translational efforts by accepting and recognizing such endeavors and measuring their
impact; by offering stronger and longer protec- tion of intellectual property, thus allowing
technologies to mature; and by investing in inventions emerging from their programs to
develop and derisk them prior to licensing, encouraging inven- tors to address translational
hurdles, and incorporating translation and entrepreneurship into the education they provide.
Such efforts can provide additional avenues for researchers to pursue societal impact, enable
universities to build stronger bridges with industry, and allow both uni- versities and society to
extract more value from a currently underutilized resource.

THE UNDERGRADUATE CORE CURRICULUM

Throughout its history, chemical engineering has been defined as a profession

by its core undergraduate curriculum, a curriculum that has for more than a century
prevented the “spalling of the profession” (p. 573, Scriven, 1991). At the same time, this
core un- dergraduate curriculum has evolved with the incorporation of new topics
reflecting emerging areas of impact and relevant practice, as well as ongoing dialogue
about the very nature of the profession. The resilience of the discipline in the face of
change reflects the nature of its core curriculum and how it brings together the
underpinning sciences (chemistry, physics, mathematics, biochemistry, and biology)
into an interdisciplinary problem-solving context. Together, the enduring nature of this
canon and its history of adaptation and impact speak to the resiliency of the chemical
engineering discipline.
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New Directions for Chemical
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230 New Directions for Chemical Engineering

This curriculum has been aimed at transmitting a body of knowledge that is

foun- dational and translating it into solutions for technological and societal challenges.
It has enabled chemical engineers to respond nimbly to the unpredictable nature of these
chal- lenges by redirecting fundamental concepts as codified in a historical sequence of
core courses: mass and energy balances, transport of mass and energy, chemical
kinetics, pro- cess design and control, and a capstone undergraduate laboratory. The
examples used in transmitting this knowledge and applying it in practice have changed
and will continue to do so as chemical engineering finds new applications, even as the
foundations have ac- quired additional complexity through mathematical dexterity
fueled by transformational changes in computing power, as well as greater breadth
through the growth of the bio- chemical aspects of the discipline.
The core undergraduate curriculum provides a problem-solving approach to the
mastery of concepts in the dynamics and thermodynamics of physical and chemical pro-
cesses, with a historical evolution from the physical to the chemical; most recently to the
biochemical and electrochemical, and at present, toward the photochemical realm. The
problems addressed have changed because “engineers solve problems. If they are suc-
cessful, those problems disappear. Then we find new problems to solve…, but the
princi- ples used to solve successive generations of problems change very slowly…” (p.
243, Schowalter, 2003).
The core curriculum as taught represents a method of inquiry and a toolbox for
solving problems. It is entirely general in its most abstract mathematical form; perhaps
for this reason, it has remained useful for a remarkable breadth of relevant practice. At
the same time, however, it can appear to lack merit and utility when first learned, espe-
cially if the content is delivered absent context within current modern problems and
prac- tice. The consensus of a selected group of graduate students and postdocs is that
“process science,” their nomenclature for the core curriculum, has proved complete
enough and adaptable enough to persist for the next 25 years and longer (Westmoreland
and McCabe, 2018). Yet the profession and its undergraduate curriculum do not always
succeed in cre- ating the messaging landscape required to attract and retain individuals
with the diverse backgrounds and interests that future challenges will demand. As it
evolves, then, the curriculum will need to convey with greater purpose and success how
“no profession un- leashes the spirit of innovation like engineering” and how few other
disciplines “have such a direct and positive effect on people’s everyday lives” (p. 46,
NAE, 2008).
To those embedded within the field at a given time, the evolution of the curricu-
lum has often seemed too slow and the survival of the discipline fraught with perils.
This is not a new perception. Decades ago, Denn (p. 565, 1991) observed, “We have
been hearing a great deal in recent years about the changing nature of chemical
engineering. The emphasis on new fields of research has created the appearance of a
fragmented pro- fession….” Nonetheless, as suggested above, the curriculum “has
endured, not because it is frozen, but because it has adapted dynamically to new ideas,
emphases challenges, and opportunities” (p. 7, Luo et al., 2015). As described later in
this chapter, some topics within the curriculum will need to evolve more rapidly, and in
some cases, components removed from the canon during earlier cycles of evolution will
need to be restored.

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New Directions for Chemical
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Training and Fostering the Next Generation of Chemical Engineers 231

Today, as throughout its history, the field of chemical engineering needs to con-
sider what minimal requirements and what set of principles should define the content of
its core undergraduate curriculum. This is a question perhaps best posed as: What should
an evolving undergraduate curriculum deliver as its product? Nearly 20 years ago, the
answer to that question was, an undergraduate chemical engineer trained through “a pro-
gram of study sufficient for entry-level positions in engineering practice and
engineering- related fields,” but also exposure to shoulder areas and to professional and
personal ethical guidelines and the foundational knowledge required for graduate
studies (p. 243, Schowalter, 2003). These requirements have not changed, but chemical
engineers func- tion and practice in a much different environment today. They are asked
to address more diverse challenges with a body of knowledge and a toolbox that extend
beyond what a 4- year core undergraduate curriculum can competently deliver in full.
As discussed later in this chapter, master’s degrees and continuing education are likely
to become increasingly important for working professionals who seek to specialize in
one of these shoulder areas. The toolbox delivered by the undergraduate curriculum
provides a mathematical framework for designing and describing (electro-/photo-/bio-)
chemical and physical pro- cesses across length and time scales spanning many orders
of magnitude. It teaches that
(1) some quantities are conserved (energy, momentum, atoms, mass); (2) their balances
need to be carried out over “control volumes” small enough to be homogeneous but
large enough to be described by continuum equations; (3) thermodynamic relations
define the point of equilibrium, but also the dynamics by which systems approach such
equilibria, whether through chemical or physical changes; and (4) all of this extends,
remarkably unperturbed, to molecules and atoms in every state of matter (gas, liquid,
solid, supercriti- cal).
A survey of young professionals a few years after they had entered the
profession of chemical engineering identified features of the undergraduate curriculum
that they con- sidered important to their careers (Figure 9-2); the components of the
enduring core cur- riculum are well represented throughout these features. The four
highlighted items repre- sent those in need of revision and strengthening in the face of
changes in both the nature of chemical engineering practice and the employment
landscape. Two items in particu- lar—process and product safety; and data science and
application: design of experiments, statistics, analytics—reside within the core
knowledge base and need to become more prominent. Process and product safety will
need to become a stronger component within each core undergraduate course. Data
science and statistics may be delivered most effec- tively in a separate course embedded
within the core curriculum and taught with specific emphasis on matters of chemistry
and engineering. This latter course would also bring a greater emphasis on statistics in
the modern context of larger datasets, more powerful computing, and models and
methods that are more robust and of greater fidelity.
The other features highlighted in Figure 9-2—business skills, leadership
training, management, and economics; and innovation and entrepreneurial skills—
represent “softer” skillsets that provide entry-level engineers with significant
competitive ad- vantages in today’s workplace. Along with other, related skills, such as
written and oral

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New Directions for Chemical
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232 New Directions for Chemical Engineering

FIGURE 9-2 Career importance of various areas of study, as indicated in a survey of early-
career chemical engineers. SOURCE: Modified from Luo et al. (2015).

communication and a baseline understanding of policy and regulatory issues, however,

they reside outside the technical core of chemical engineering. In the committee’s view,
the core undergraduate curriculum is not the most effective vehicle for delivering the
nec- essary foundational knowledge and skills in these areas. Elective courses,
postgraduate training in specialized industrial settings, and lifelong learning through
professional soci- eties and relevant literature provide more effective routes for
acquiring and sharpening these skills, and the application and sharpening of these
ancillary skills can be made part of each core course, with emphasis on how they enable
and enhance the technical contri- butions of chemical engineers.
The remainder of this section describes some of the challenges that represent
im- portant considerations in the near-term evolution of the undergraduate curriculum,
as identified by members of this committee and shared by invited external speakers in
dis- cussions and presentations. Three challenges are discussed: the need for experiential
learning and greater connectivity among the concepts/tools of the discipline and their
ap- plication in practice through (1) more effective connections among the individual
core courses (“the silos”); (2) experiential learning through virtual or physical laboratory
ex- periences earlier in the undergraduate course of studies; and (3) a more effective and
seamless embedding of statistics and of mathematical and computational thinking into
the core. The committee emphasizes that these challenges are inextricably connected,
and notes that actions suggested in the course of the discussion are meant to be
illustrative, and not to prescribe modes of implementation, which will best be identified
by experts in discipline-based education research (e.g., NRC, 2012; Paul and Brennan,
2019).

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Training and Fostering the Next Generation of Chemical Engineers 233

Connecting the Silos

In the core curriculum, concepts of balances (mass, energy, momentum), fluid

flow, thermodynamics, kinetics, and process/design control are taught in separate
courses that may make them seem disconnected to students. Students are then asked to
connect these seemingly disparate concepts with each other, as well as with the bond-
making and bond-breaking rules from the chemistry curriculum, the biochemical tenets
of the biology curriculum, and the mathematical mechanics taught within the
mathematics curriculum. Not surprisingly, students face significant hurdles in bringing
these historical repositories of knowledge together to form the problem-solving and
reasoning strategies that consti- tute the practice of chemical engineering. Some of these
connections emerge, with varying levels of effectiveness and rigor, in a laboratory or
unit operations course near the end of the curriculum. But these connections are better
made by anticipating in earlier courses how these concepts will ultimately coalesce at
later stages and what kinds of engineering challenges require their combined application
—how the balances, the thermodynamics and dynamics, the fluid flow, and the
chemistry and biology ultimately merge into the design and control of reaction,
separation, biological, and materials synthesis processes. These earlier connections can
be made, in the committee’s view, by making the bounda- ries between the silos more
porous, highlighting how the individual core concepts first presented within their
respective silos ultimately merge into the practice of chemical en- gineering.

Experiential Learning and a “Laboratory within Each Core Course”

The dense nature of the core undergraduate curriculum leaves few openings for
incorporating an additional hands-on laboratory course earlier in the curriculum. In
some instances, this has been successfully accomplished, albeit as a broad engineering
design course (e.g., the Coffee Lab at the University of California, Davis; see Box 9-2).
In other cases, a freshman-level introductory course has attempted to place the
curriculum in con- text at an early stage, but without the rigor of analysis and treatment
that will follow later on and with some duplication of the content of subsequent core
courses. Such efforts need to continue and expand, but they are likely to miss those
students that enter at a later stage of the curriculum through transfer from community
college or other majors. An alterna- tive strategy would be to use advances in real-time
simulation and demonstration in vir- tual/digital form to illustrate an “experiment”
representing the behavior of a (bio-/photo-
/electro-) chemical or physical system as described by a mathematical representation im-
mediately following this “experience.” In its interactive mode, this kind of visualization
would allow students to design and control the behavior and performance of such
systems, to explore how they respond to perturbations in parameters or conditions, and
to address and resolve safety and ethical matters in the practice of engineering without
risking any direct physical or professional consequences of their actions. Such
approaches, currently implemented as more ad hoc strategies, would expose students to
issues of design, control,

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234 New Directions for Chemical Engineering

BOX 9-2
Coffee Lab: An Example of Experiential Learning

At the University of California, Davis an experiential freshman laboratory experience has

been developed for both majors and nonmajors. a Each version of this course uses the design of
a coffee-brewing process, optimizing flavor with respect to energy use, as a vehicle for experi-
ential learning. For nonmajors, the goal is providing a nonmathematical introduction to how
chemical engineers think by using the unit operations of coffee brewing and experiments as an
illustration. This course for nonmajors has a very large enrollment (>1,000 students/year) and
serves the goals of both marketing the major to non–chemical engineering freshmen and
provid- ing a basic chemical engineering skillset to other disciplines. The analogous course for
majors is mathematical in nature and uses the roasting, grinding, and brewing of coffee to
introduce process flow diagrams, mass and energy balances, transport phenomena, separations,
and the basics of design. With this experience in hand, students are demonstrably more
sophisticated in their understanding of how individual courses and concepts fit into the
discipline and various applications as they complete their degrees.
The Coffee Lab also uses relatively inexpensive and readily available household
appliances that require minimal training and safety measures. This makes it an accessible
introduction to chemical engineering for institutions that do not currently support a chemical
engineering pro- gram or laboratory and could facilitate interest and preparedness for students
who transfer to schools with, or pursue graduate degrees in, this field.
a
https://coffeecenter.ucdavis.edu/facilities/undergraduate-coffee-lab.

safety, and even economic impact that typically appear in their more formal and founda-
tional contexts later in the curriculum. They could also be used to incorporate sensitivity
and statistical analyses, design of experiments, “what if” assessments of realistic scenar-
ios, and a view of mathematical treatments underpinned by their role in analysis and de-
cision making in the practice of the chemical and physical processes that such
treatments intend to describe. The application of these approaches will continue to
benefit from ad- vances in real-time description and visualization of process (and
product) performance, and will sharpen the process synthesis and analysis skills needed
for chemical engineering practice. And students will be more effective and feel less
intimidated when examining the validity of assumptions made in describing real-world
systems that would otherwise require descriptions too complex for analytical solutions
or even numerical analysis of more complete equations.

Bringing Mathematics and Statistics into the Core

In most cases, students acquire the mathematical machinery of calculus,

differen- tial equations, and linear algebra in courses taught by college math departments
or through advanced high school coursework. In such courses, they acquire limited (if
any) skills in numerical methods or in the construction of the equations that describe the
physical and

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New Directions for Chemical
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Training and Fostering the Next Generation of Chemical Engineers 235

chemical content they are later asked to implement in chemical engineering courses.
Sta- tistical analysis, specifically in the context of acquiring knowledge and analyzing
dense datasets, is essentially absent from the curriculum until the capstone laboratory
course, where students first encounter the imperfections of the data gathered through
their own actions. Previously, such statistical and mathematical methods were more
closely inte- grated into and introduced earlier in the curriculum. The reversal of that
pattern seen today in the case of statistics is due to the emergence of data science as a
modern catchall for the learning and practice of such methods. The committee believes
that training in math- ematics and statistics needs to be brought into the core curriculum
in a more structured manner, either complementing or replacing some of the education
that currently occurs outside the core curriculum. This might take the form of a course in
mathematical methods taught within chemical engineering departments focused on
illustrating how analytical, numerical, and statistical methods are used in the context of
the equations that emerge later within specific core courses. The return of this content to
the core needs to occur reasonably early in the course of studies for greatest impact,
creating several challenges given the dense nature of the curriculum and the needs of
students entering at different stages and with different backgrounds and skillsets in
mathematics and statistics.
In summary, the undergraduate chemical engineering curriculum has served the
discipline well and will continue to evolve in response to scientific discoveries, techno-
logical advances, and societal needs. In this evolution, it will benefit from rapid changes
in the ways knowledge is disseminated and transferred within and among disciplines. As
part of this evolution, it is also necessary to consider the imperative to attract and retain
practitioners of chemical engineering with increasingly diverse backgrounds, as
discussed in the next section. Later sections of this chapter address the need to enhance
and improve training in business, economics, innovation, and entrepreneurship, as well
as lifelong learning. The committee considers these skills to be essential, well suited to
being illus- trated within the core undergraduate curriculum but entailing foundational
knowledge that lies beyond the core.

BECOMING A CHEMICAL ENGINEER: THE IMPORTANCE OF DIVERSITY

As a discipline, chemical engineering is unique in its pervasive contributions to

society—in areas ranging from energy; to food, water, and air; to health and medicine;
to manufacturing; to materials, as described in earlier chapters of this report.
Consequen- tially, the field is in a strong position to attract a broad range of individuals
interested in the many areas associated with chemical engineering who also are seeking
a career with the potential for societal impact. Research has shown that members of
historically ex- cluded groups are often motivated by the altruistic career goals of
making the world better and giving back to their communities (Thoman et al., 2015).
Emphasizing the role of chemical engineering in addressing societal issues might
therefore help attract more high school students from diverse backgrounds to the
undergraduate major.
Women and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) are underrepre-
sented in chemical engineering relative to the general population, even by comparison

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236 New Directions for Chemical Engineering

with chemical and biological sciences and related fields. While a career in a STEM (sci-
ence, technology, engineering, and mathematics) field is an attractive path toward altru-
istic work, persisting barriers impede the entry of women and BIPOC into the field.
Some of these barriers affect all historically excluded groups, while others affect
students based on their gender or racial identity, and these barriers can be compounded
for students who are members of more than one historically excluded group. The
National Academies and others have reported extensively on such structural and cultural
barriers as unwelcoming and unsupportive cultures and environments; “gatekeeping”;
biases; lack of mentors and role models; and inequitable policies and practices that
impact recruitment, retention, and career success (see, e.g., McGee, 2020, on barriers for
underrepresented and racially minoritized students; NASEM, 2020b, on barriers for
Black students; NASEM, 2016, on barriers for women and BIPOC broadly; and
NASEM, 2018 and 2020a, on barriers for women).
As a result of such systemic barriers, chemical engineering benefits from the tal-
ents of only a fraction of the population. Educational attainment in chemical engineering
for women (Figure 9-3) and BIPOC (Figure 9-4) has remained essentially unchanged for
more than a decade. The demographics in chemical engineering today reflect the past.
Historically, science and engineering have not been welcoming to BIPOC and women
and have been particularly harsh to Black Americans. In his essay “The Negro
Scientist,” published in The American Scholar in 1939, W. E. B. Du Bois challenged
assumptions held by Whites regarding the propensity of African Americans for science.
These types of biases persist, and after starts and stumbles with interventions designed
to counter sys- temic barriers (NASEM, 2016), work still remains to provide clear and
inclusive pathways in STEM fields, including chemical engineering, for historically
excluded groups.
To fully support members of historically excluded groups in chemical engineer-
ing training and education, specialized programs and cultural shifts will be necessary.
Interventions and support mechanisms will vary based on which groups are targeted
(NASEM, 2021c); the focus may be on supporting women, 2 or on Black3 or Latinx/His-
panic and Indigenous4 students. The design of specific support mechanisms will vary as
well according to the unique needs and goals of each institution. In this section, and in
the later section on graduate education, the committee presents strategies applicable for
most chemical engineering departments that are likely to improve the recruitment and
retention of and outcomes for multiple underrepresented groups.
Research has illuminated how children’s early pathways can be determined,
along with some of the critical factors that dictate their future educational options and
career trajectories (Akee et al., 2017; Chetty et al., 2016, 2019). These studies have
revealed that children with high scores on third-grade math tests who come from high-
income families, children who grow up in geographic areas with high rates of invention,
and girls who are exposed to women inventors are more likely to become inventors.
These findings speak
2
E.g., Society of Women Engineers (https://swe.org/).
3
E.g., National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chem-
ical Engineers (https://www.nobcche.org/).
4
E.g, Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science
(https://www.sacnas.org/).

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New Directions for Chemical
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Training and Fostering the Next Generation of Chemical Engineers 237

to the social factors that require attention in any technical field seeking to spark
creativity and build pathways to include the full pool of talent. The importance of role
models and access to opportunities is clear, as is the need for adequate academic
preparation for any STEM field, including chemical engineering. In primary and
secondary education, studies specific to chemical engineering are lacking; studies that
include qualitative data and ex- periences specific to chemical engineering are lacking
even more.
Chemical engineering as a field is not immune from systemic and other barriers
to inclusivity, and the field can draw insights and apply the lessons from STEM-wide
studies. In short, if chemical engineering is to reach its full potential as a discipline and
a major enabler of solutions for societal needs, it will need to address opportunity gaps
and ensure that its educational, research, and professional environments support the
success of everyone, regardless of their identity.

FIGURE 9-3 Percentage of bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD degrees awarded to women in
chemical engineering (ChemE), biomedical engineering (BME), and engineering overall, 2008–
2018. Data from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.

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New Directions for Chemical
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238 New Directions for Chemical Engineering

FIGURE 9-4 Demographic breakdown of degrees awarded to chemical engineers by race: (a)
bachelor’s degrees, (b) master’s degrees, and (c) PhDs. NOTE: In the data for PhDs, the category
of Asian and Pacific Islander is disaggregated, with separate categories for Asian and for Native
Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders; the categories also included an option for “more than one race”
rather than “other race or unknown.” Therefore, these data do not sum to 100 percent because
data were redacted for privacy reasons. Data from the National Center for Science and
Engineering Statistics.

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Training and Fostering the Next Generation of Chemical Engineers 239

Cech (2013) speaks to the (mis)framing of engineering as meritocratic and

depo- liticized (asocial). This mischaracterization results from the false assumptions that
an in- herently technical field will inevitably be a meritocracy as though technical fields
can operate outside of social influences (Cech, 2013; Cech and Blair-Loy, 2010). This
framing has been debunked with research revealing the myriad structural and cultural
factors that turn students away from the field regardless of their skills and competencies
(Seymour and Hewitt, 1997), such as structural racism (McGee, 2020), gatekeeping, and
weeding out through historical exclusion in the education system (Malcom, 1996;
Malcom and Malcom-Piquex, 2020), and stereotyping regarding who has innate talent
(Leslie et al., 2015). Science and math courses have long been gatekeepers for entry into
engineering. Retention data disaggregated by discipline are not readily available, but
based on the ob- servations of members of this committee, such courses as the
sophomore-level course in mass and energy balances in chemical engineering serve as
additional gatekeepers.
Those chemical engineers who are retained in the field play many roles in
practice and face significant challenges in retaining relevance and excellence as the field
evolves; they do so through diverse educational trajectories and with endpoints in
industry, aca- demia, and elsewhere. When considering what draws people to chemical
engineering, it is important to acknowledge these different educational and career
trajectories and the pressures involved in achieving and maintaining them. Stability,
work–life balance, pro- fessional support structures and mentorship, and opportunities
for growth are important to people in any sector but are not distributed equally across
sectors or demographics within them. In academia, professors act as educators,
administrators, mentors, research- ers, communicators, and fundraisers, but all
individuals are not equally suited to all of these tasks, and some can become
overburdened by the need to fulfill them all.
At the same time, members of historically excluded groups bear a disproportion-
ate responsibility for promoting diversity, providing representation on committees, and
supporting the academic and career progression of other members of underrepresented
groups. Institutionalizing the work of diversity requires shared responsibility, not just
the efforts of those with a personal stake in improving access to equitable opportunities.
Both industry and academia still fail to pay and support women and BIPOC and promote
them to executive positions at a proportional rate (Funk and Parker, 2018; Gumpertz et
al., 2017; Renzulli, 2019). Promoting and retaining meaningfully diverse talent will
have a multiplier effect, engendering greater diversity moving forward as more diverse
groups decide who joins the workforce. These issues are pervasive throughout STEM
fields and certainly not unique to chemical engineering. In looking to the future,
however, chemical engineers have an opportunity to be leaders among STEM fields in
increasing diversity and inclusion within their profession.
Greater visibility and connectivity within the broader community can also
support diversity, equity, and recruitment, and chemical engineers can make
contributions in other areas of public interest beyond diversifying the field. Like all
scientists and engineers, they have the opportunity to use effective scientific and popular
communication to engage with the general public, as well as improve resources for K-12
educators. Social media and science entertainment have been vital for accessibility and
visibility, but given the integral roles of science and engineering in society, scientists
and engineers need to be

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240 New Directions for Chemical Engineering

more integrated into policy making. Chemical engineers have a stake in society equal to
that of people with law or business backgrounds who commonly take on societal concerns,
and are trained in a thought process that would lend itself well to addressing those con-
cerns with respect to both scientific and systemic issues. It is not clear to the average
high school senior that chemical engineering will have a critical role in many of the
domains that will be central to progress in the coming decades. As demonstrated in
earlier chapters, many policy issues in such domains as energy, food security, clean air
and water, and health care, and public health involve chemical engineering. Maintaining
dialogue among chemical engineers in policy-making positions, communities to be
served, and those in academia and industry would also benefit the field, identifying
needs and potential prior- ities.
Science policy is another area in which students are driving growth at universities,
founding student groups and advocating for formalized programs. Being responsive to
those student interests and facilitating this career path can help chemical engineering
pro- grams attract those who want to pursue public-sector work and to develop both the
tools and the influence needed to have direct impact in bettering their community.
This section has addressed recruitment of chemical engineers and barriers to en-
tering the field, in particular for women and BIPOC. Recruiting is critical, but so is
reten- tion. Mentorship has been shown to have a positive effect on underrepresented
students, yet underrepresented individuals enrolled in STEM programs typically receive
less men- torship than their well-represented peers (NASEM, 2019e). Institutionalized
developmen- tal support needs to evolve from “Are you cut out for this?” to “How can
we help you succeed?” Formal support systems for academic success are enhanced by
the deliberate formation of peer and mentoring networks. Beyond mentoring, systemic
approaches to ensuring success for all individuals along the entire career path will
ensure that chemical engineering remains equipped to attract, develop, and retain a
diverse cadre of future chemical engineers.

MAKING CHEMICAL ENGINEERING BROADLY ACCESSIBLE

A long-running national dialogue about college affordability and the impact of

student loan debt on the overall economy has recently become more visible. The relative
affordability of community colleges is a major attraction for a diverse body of students,
ranging from talented budget-minded high school seniors to nontraditional students. In
2021, average annual tuition and fees at 2-year public schools was $3,372, versus
$9,580 for in-state students at 4-year public schools (Hanson, 2021). In addition, at least
17 states have programs that make community college attendance tuition-free for at least
a portion of the student population (Farrington, 2020). Students enrolled at 2-year
schools are more racially diverse than those at 4-year schools (NASEM, 2016), and the
majority of tribal colleges and universities in the United States are 2-year institutions.
Further, many states have existing contractual agreements promising not only admission
to public 4-year insti- tutions for students who demonstrate success at a community
college, but also the ability to graduate within 2 years after transferring. Indeed, it is
possible that 2-year community colleges could become the default choice of the middle
class in the relatively near future,

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Training and Fostering the Next Generation of Chemical Engineers 241

requiring a major adaptation of chemical engineering undergraduate programs to

become viable options for those students.
This body of transfer students represents an untapped opportunity for chemical
engineering to broaden participation in and access to the profession. Over the last
decades, science communication and outreach at the K-12 level have resulted in
significantly in- creased interest in STEM fields, but that increase (particularly among
diverse groups) has been focused in areas in which high school courses are available—
physics; biology; com- puter science; and, to a lesser degree, mechanical
engineering/robotics. Many high school graduates have little exposure to the relevance
or potential impact of chemical engineering as a career, and few community colleges offer
chemical engineering courses, though many provide transfer pathways to 4-year schools.
Building bridges to actively recruit both full- time community college students and
nontraditional students and identifying and imple- menting pathways to support them
after they transfer could greatly democratize the pro- fession.
Chemical engineering transfer students face a remarkable challenge beyond the
abrupt change from the community college to the larger university environment (some-
times referred to as “transfer shock”; Flaga, 2006). Chemical engineering curricula gen-
erally have required courses beginning early in the sophomore year, with many
programs offering an introductory course in the first year. Further, education research
has under- scored the importance of providing early hands-on experiences in
engineering to improve students’ motivation to complete their degrees (Cui et al., 2011).
In fact, such experiences have been shown to be particularly successful in the retention
of women and BIPOC (re- spectively, a 27 percent, 54 percent, and 36 percent retention
gain for women, Latinx, and African American students; Hoit and Ohland, 1998; Knight
et al., 2003; Napoli et al., 2017; Willson et al., 1995). These gains are attributed not only
to increased design, team- work, and communication skills, but also to the development
of a peer support network (Richardson and Dantzler, 2002). Challenges for transfer
students are compounded be- cause, in contrast with prerequisites in chemistry, physics,
and mathematics, most 2-year community colleges lack chemical engineering
departments to offer these courses, much less hands-on experiences. Further, because
students at community colleges do not fulfill any major requirements, they do not form a
peer support network with other chemical engineering majors. As a result, transfer
students are asked to compress most of 3–4 years of chemical engineering curriculum
into a 2-year period, and to do so without the same peer support or foundational
experience in engineering enjoyed by their nontransfer peers. This is not a recipe for
success.
The challenge of accommodating a 2-year path to graduation for community
col- lege transfer students is already facing many undergraduate programs at public
universi- ties. This is an ideal opportunity for the widespread deployment of online
course offerings within the sophomore chemical engineering curriculum (mass and
energy balances, a first course in transport phenomena and/or thermodynamics, and
likely a course in mathemat- ics for chemical engineering applications). Further, from a
student perspective, these courses need to be widely accepted so as to open up options
for transfer to a variety of 4- year programs. Despite the obvious administrative hurdles,
these courses would be most beneficial if crafted by and offered as a collaboration
among leading large universities

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242 New Directions for Chemical Engineering

(public and private), along with the accreditation agencies and the American Institute of
Chemical Engineers (AIChE), thereby promoting universal acceptance of these courses
as satisfying prerequisites for the junior-level curricula at individual 4-year institutions.
In addition to academic hurdles, community college transfer students may face
financial or other challenges that, while unrelated to their academic abilities, affect their
performance. For example, the lack of study groups or support systems noted above
(Lenaburg et al., 2012) can translate into a sizable drop in their grade point average
during the first term, which can have long-term impacts on the future potential for
graduate study and career options. In addition, given the relatively short time spent at a
4-year university, such transfer students typically do not participate in campus
undergraduate research ex- periences, thus missing out on important opportunities for
professional skills development and resumé building. Universities need to develop
systems to support and engage these students early on and establish peer networks that
will support their acclimation and aca- demic success (Eris et al., 2010; Litzler and
Young, 2012). Importantly, doing so will build students’ confidence and teach important
workplace skills.
The committee recognizes that adding more experiential learning earlier in a tra-
ditional 4-year curriculum (as discussed previously in this chapter) and making that
same 4-year curriculum more welcoming to transfer students from 2-year institutions are
seem- ingly at odds with one another. The experience of a transfer student in a 4-year
program will never be the same as that of a student who entered as a freshman, but it is
the com- mittee’s hope that more practicum-like experiences will become standard
across all intro- ductory STEM courses, whether offered at a 2-year or 4-year institution.
For this reason, the committee also chose to highlight an example of experiential
learning (Box 9-2) that does not require expensive or specialized equipment, as well as
the development of virtual experiential learning experiences and courses that satisfy the
chemical engineering degree requirements typically offered during the sophomore year.

TEACHING UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS TODAY AND TOMORROW

Delivery Methods

In spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused almost all U.S. higher
education institutions to move abruptly to an online format, greatly accelerating ongoing
trends to- ward efficiency and scale within higher education. The result was the creation
of signifi- cant online content of widely varying quality and a deeper understanding of
what does and does not work in synchronous and asynchronous online modes both for
chemical en- gineering and more generally.
To some degree, chemical engineering courses, regardless of the subject, tradi-
tionally start with fundamentals and end with practice (if time permits). This pattern re-
flects the desire of educators to teach tools that can be adapted throughout a student’s
career rather than a vocational skill. In practice, however, this approach has resulted in
the derivation of fundamental equations in lecture, with application and problem solving
occurring in discussion sections and problem sets. The online experience of 2020–2021
amplified existing trends toward classroom delivery that encourages more problem- and

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Training and Fostering the Next Generation of Chemical Engineers 243

project-based and group learning, which appears to be welcomed by students. One mode
of implementing this “flipped” approach that became prominent in the online format
was including the derivation in an asynchronous recording and then solving the
problems live. The obvious weaknesses of this approach are a potential lack of
understanding of asyn- chronous content or noncompliance with requirements to watch
it. There are also some indications that such flipped approaches or greater use of team-
based learning may dis- proportionately affect women, BIPOC, and low-income
students; however, the results of early research are conflicting in this regard (e.g., Cruz
et al., 2021; Deri et al., 2018; Dixon and Wendt, 2021; Raišienė et al., 2021; Sarsons,
2017; Winter et al., 2021). More research is needed in this area, and any move toward
more asynchronous learning and/or team- and project-based learning will need to ensure
equitable outcomes for all students.
In this regard, it may be more realistic to consider online delivery as the new
form of “self-teaching.” Historically, the U.S. higher education system (regardless of
disci- pline) has strived to impart to students both concrete knowledge and skills and the
ability to learn new skills throughout their career. In this sense, the purpose of courses is
to teach content that is critical, but that is either too difficult or not obviously motivating
to learn on its own. If viewed through this lens, the curation of online content that is
either of a complexity level appropriate for self-teaching or related to subjects for which
the student is motivated offers an exciting prospect for lifelong learning, allowing for
the uniform distribution of better content at lower cost and democratizing the offering
of specialized courses around the world. Augmentation of existing courses (with
modules, examples, or alternative explanations), communication and other soft skills,
business/entrepreneur- ship/management, policy and regulatory issues, and extensions of
course content are areas in which online and classroom learning may dovetail within a
single course or curriculum.
All online content carries the curse of the internet—namely, the varying quality
and accuracy of information and content. Within a single course or curriculum, curation
of content will become a major faculty responsibility. With respect to extension
learning, curation of content may become a major endeavor of professional societies
such as AIChE. In the past, these societies have served their membership in terms of
information dissemination and continuing professional education via conferences,
workshops and seminars, and the publication of journals. Going forward, this role will
likely shift not just to one that is online in nature but to one that is more geared toward
serving as a trusted curator of outside resources, perhaps via a subscription model rather
than content gener- ation and ownership.

Curricular Content Evolution

As discussed earlier in this chapter, the chemical engineering curriculum has in

recent years sought to balance the goals of retaining core rigor (mathematical modeling,
thermodynamics, kinetics, and design) and incorporating new important topics (most re-
cently, biochemical engineering and data science). With a massive expansion of the
num- ber of STEM majors in many institutions (Figure 9-5), enrollment in the
introductory se- quences of chemistry, physics, mathematics, and biology has grown
to the point that

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244 New Directions for Chemical Engineering

chemical engineering students make up a small portion of STEM students. This shift has
led to the question, posed differently at every university based on its politics and
financial construct, of the degree to which these other departments should teach
introductory ma- terial relevant to chemical engineering and to what degree a chemical
engineering pro- gram is responsible for its own introductory material. For example,
each chemical engi- neering major in the United States is required to take a
calculus sequence from a mathematics department. Some chemical engineering
departments have developed sup- plemental undergraduate mathematics content to
incorporate coverage of relevant partial differential equations, linear algebra, numerical
methods, and the data science and statis- tics tools needed by chemical engineering
students. This trend is likely to be limited, how- ever, by the relatively small size of
chemical engineering departments and an inability to teach an entire undergraduate
curriculum without the aid of sister departments on campus. Further, as discussed above,
one major drive toward college affordability and diversity and inclusion is the
broadening of a path for transfer students from lower-cost community colleges and
students who change their majors. Neither is well served by a curriculum that is
monolithically specialized starting in the freshman year.

FIGURE 9-5 Total STEM degrees (bachelor’s, master’s, PhD) awarded between 2008 and 2018.
Data from National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.

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Training and Fostering the Next Generation of Chemical Engineers 245

TEACHING GRADUATE STUDENTS TODAY AND TOMORROW

Chemical engineering research has expanded considerably in breadth and scope

over the past decades, and it is likely to continue doing so. This expansion requires that
graduate students acquire deep knowledge in adjacent fields and subfields, including, for
example, biology, materials science, and applied physics. At the same time, increasing
demands on undergraduate education programs have necessitated reduced coverage of
core chemical engineering topics, such as thermodynamics and transport phenomena.
The question facing graduate education in the field is whether to compensate for the
depth and content that are no longer provided by a chemical engineering undergraduate
degree or to focus on giving students the flexibility and opportunities to largely tailor
their own grad- uate program.
A core graduate program consisting of thermodynamics, statistical and quantum
mechanics, transport phenomena, chemical kinetics, and applied mathematics will con-
tinue to be necessary for chemical engineering research, but that content will have to be
delivered in a manner that allows students to apply it in a wider range of contexts.
Courses in thermodynamics, for example, will have to rely on approaches and examples
that illus- trate the general applicability of the underlying concepts, from problems
related to issues of protein stability; to general free-energy minimization techniques; to
phase transitions in mixtures of solids, liquids, or gases. The core curriculum will need
to be limited to foundational concepts, thereby giving students the flexibility to pursue
coursework in ar- eas of direct relevance to their research.
While graduate preparation in chemical engineering builds on undergraduate
ma- terial, this exclusivity comes at the cost of diversity in terms of both the number of
women and BIPOC and the breadth of scientific backgrounds in the chemical
engineering gradu- ate population. The imperative to recruit talent from a more diverse
range of backgrounds will require, in addition to the measures discussed above, the
opening up of chemical engineering by providing background content in a manner that
creates opportunities for students from other disciplines (e.g., chemists, physicists,
biologists) to join a graduate chemical engineering program. That material would
include elements from the core sub- jects covered in the undergraduate curriculum but
organized and delivered in a way that is easily accessible to postgraduate scientists or
engineers. Interestingly, anecdotal evi- dence from the members of this committee
indicates that while many chemical engineer- ing graduate programs use undergraduate
preparation in the field as a major gateway to admission, faculty of their own
departments include many members whose training was in related disciplines.
Relative to undergraduate programs in chemical engineering, those in chemistry
and biology graduate significantly more women (50 percent and 63 percent,
respectively, compared to 35 percent in chemical engineering; NCSES, 2018). Similarly,
undergradu- ate programs in chemistry and biology are more racially diverse (58 percent
and 55 per- cent White, respectively, compared with 64 percent white in chemical
engineering; NCSES, 2018). By considering admitting more graduate students with
undergraduate de- grees in these related disciplines, chemical engineering departments
could provide oppor- tunities for more diverse applicant pools. Significantly, a decision
not to accept graduate

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246 New Directions for Chemical Engineering

students from other, related fields would generally rule out the enrollment of graduates
of many historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving
institutions that lack undergraduate chemical engineering programs. At the same time, a
search for diverse graduate students cannot be limited solely to those institutions. Even
when re- cruiting within undergraduate chemical engineering programs, there is an
elitism in some graduate programs that excludes those who may have chosen a
bachelor’s institution be- cause of its affordability or location. For a graduate program, it
is justifiable to want stu- dents to understand what it means to do research before
committing them to, and support- ing them for, a program lasting many years. But how
is genuine interest cultivated for those who did not know earlier about or did not have
access to undergraduate research opportunities, or for those members of historically
excluded groups who did have the chance to participate in such programs as the
Research Experience for Undergraduates but are then not actively recruited to the host
institutions?
Another vehicle for graduate education that has until recently been largely miss-
ing from the graduate chemical engineering curriculum is internships in industry,
govern- ment, or the nonprofit sector. Experiential learning in the form of graduate
internships is currently rare, and providing sufficient opportunities for systematic
placement of graduate students will require a conversation among industry, federal
funding agencies, universi- ties, and professional organizations such as AIChE to enable
the development of suitable frameworks capable of administering effective training
programs, perhaps even on a na- tional scale. As with coursework, new opportunities are
emerging through remote and virtual access. New models will likely be needed that
address issues of equity and inclu- sion, suitable compensation, intellectual property
considerations, and a commitment to the mentoring of graduate interns. Encouraging
companies to create educational/intern- ship opportunities by creating model programs
would be beneficial.
Master’s degrees are likely to play an increasingly important role in graduate
ed- ucation. For the reasons outlined above—whether a need to acquire additional depth
in core chemical engineering concepts or to gain breadth in ancillary disciplines such as
bioengineering or computing or data science, among many others—master’s degrees
could offer an attractive solution for chemical engineers needing to adapt and respond to
a rapidly changing marketplace. One obstacle that remains to be addressed is the cost of
such degrees. However, with the emergence of improved options for remote learning,
and with compelling examples of high-quality degrees (e.g., the Online Master of
Science in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology, with more than
5,000 grad- uates in its 8 years of existence; McMurtrie, 2018; Nietzel, 2021) being
offered for less than the cost of the typical undergraduate tuition at a state institution,
students and em- ployers alike will benefit from the flexibility offered by master’s and
graduate certificate programs. The chemical engineering community will have to
develop carefully conceived degrees that can not only provide in-depth, topical chemical
engineering content for stu- dents and practitioners but also attract students from other
disciplines. Such programs will also need to provide the flexibility required by working
professionals who wish to con- tinue their education and earn an advanced degree
through evening and/or weekend pro- grams.

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Training and Fostering the Next Generation of Chemical Engineers 247

NEW LEARNING AND INNOVATION PRACTICES

TO ADDRESS CURRENT CHALLENGES

The preceding sections outline significant steps that could be taken to grow and
diversify the field of chemical engineering and deepen its impact on society. These ob-
servations about curriculum, experiential learning, approaches to teaching, and ways of
building a more diverse and inclusive profession, as well as the broader issue of control-
ling the costs of higher education, raise the question of whether education in the field
can be better designed to deliver on future opportunities. Is it possible to double the
quality of an education (including an outcome measure of student success) delivered in
half the time and at half the cost? How can education be made globally accessible in real
time? What are possible new options for addressing the identified challenges facing
chemical engi- neering education? Answers to these questions could reflect and
incorporate the ways in which technology is transforming how work is performed in
many professions and how global networks have transformed knowledge management.
In the past, problems were solved based on what an individual or group of indi-
viduals knew, acquired from discrete sources (e.g., books, articles, other publications,
and their own lived experiences). Today, in contrast, essentially all of the world’s public
in- formation has been indexed and is quickly available, often at no cost, via internet
search engines. When confronted with a problem in almost any setting, those with
internet access first search for possible solutions or known information. Their initial
findings connect to nearly limitless information about related topics and solutions and
opportunities for an individual to find and build upon what is known. An education is
necessary to provide sufficient background in the subject matter so the problem can be
formulated, to curate and validate information, and then to know how to apply the
information to create the needed solutions.
The nature of the education needed to solve problems in this way is evolving.
Several companies in the technology arena have eliminated previously held
requirements for a 4-year degree for many jobs and are leading the development of more
targeted cer- tificate programs to create a pool of talent for the range of jobs that are
open. For example, Google has launched “Grow with Google,” a program wherein
completion of an online certificate program available on Coursera can lead to entry-level
jobs with competitive starting salaries.5 There is no requirement for a 4-year degree or
equivalent experience. The Google program engages more than 100 partner companies
that also have positions available upon completion of the common certificate programs.
The traditional higher education model is linear, with a student moving from K-12 to
some amount of university education and then to work, and there are usually limited
feedback loops and a lack of integration across the steps. That linear model could be
transformed into a general learn- ing model based on a shared platform integrating the
educational silos found today.

5
See http://grow.google.

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248 New Directions for Chemical Engineering

The degree to which truly new models of skills-based education will penetrate
chemical engineering is unclear. The advantages of the integrated approach discussed
above are numerous and are likely to remain attractive for many students. On the other
hand, there is ample evidence that U.S. research universities are not designed to deliver
a low-cost undergraduate education. Their many missions result in high costs (to support
faculty and research) and high overhead rates (to pay for people and facilities), and they
are not responsive over the time scales of the connected world because of the nature of
their research and scholarship. New connected models of learning and innovation that
span traditional boundaries could provide solutions more responsive to some of today’s
needs, although major barriers, including the incorporation of laboratory classes, would
have to be overcome.
Learning and innovation could be designed to span the boundary between
univer- sities and workplaces. Instead of universities taking on more responsibilities,
contributors could build content that would be shared and could be used at all stages of
education. That content could be both scalable and used locally in the classroom or as a
supplement to classroom learning. Given the accelerating pace of change, such changes
would assist learners of all ages in thinking about future career options that can be
aligned with their learning and skills development (see Box 9-3).
The move to skills-based hiring opens up other new possibilities. An existing
de- gree is at some basic level a collection of skills. Different disciplines have both
unique and common skills, the latter of which enable new mapping of those skills to
other disci- plines, as well as to different jobs. Skills-based modules offered as
complements to exist- ing degree programs could provide a lower-cost path to a first
job, along with continued support for additional lifelong learning in response to the
evolution of the job market. New learning networks could also help build a more diverse
STEM workforce by enhanc- ing access to much-needed career opportunities,
background preparation, and support.
As discussed earlier in this chapter, much remains to be learned about the
relative advantages of online and classroom teaching and learning. While online
programs have gained popularity and were widely used during the COVID-19 pandemic,
their advantages clearly come at the cost of the interpersonal interactions and
discussions that occur in a traditional classroom. Chemical engineers have an
opportunity to lead innovation in STEM fields by building a model that emphasizes
scalability as well as human connec- tion. Scalability can come from online content that
is curated jointly by companies and universities and made available for local use in the
classroom, or from the use of stand- alone modules to address particular topics that are
accessed entirely online. Human inter- action can then come from internships or work
on extended projects at a company. The possibilities are numerous, even as the existing
business model and the set of priorities now in place in universities, companies, and
government create barriers to change (e.g., Conn et al., 2021). As with all major
disruptions, change will likely be generated first by companies as they struggle to find,
hire, and develop future talent.

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Training and Fostering the Next Generation of Chemical Engineers 249

BOX 9-3
The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE)
Institute for Learning and Innovation

The AIChE Institute for Learning and Innovation (ILI) provides a “horizontal” connection
from university to workplace. In this university/local business model, shared content can be
accessed by all stakeholders for use in the classroom. The model also enables sharing across
universities and building new collaborations among multiple stakeholders. The ILI recognizes
that technology is rapidly transforming most market sectors, that learners of all ages need to
keep pace with evolving skill requirements, and that companies will seek contemporary skills
and capabilities as their business continues to change. A particular focus of the effort is on
providing high-quality and low-cost content for institutions of all sizes.
The initial ILI has four basic modules: Career Discovery, Academy, Practice, and Creden-
tial, illustrated below.

The Career Discovery module, which has been piloted and launched through the ILI,
begins with asking students “What might you like to do?” rather than “What do you want to
do?” Through a series of exercises, lectures, and group discussions, students develop a
personal career plan for working through the university curriculum. Additional skills and
experiences are high- lighted, and through the broad network of the ILI students have options
for engaging in addi- tional skills training, internships, and other outreach activities that will
help them get their first job after graduation. The same approach is being used within
companies by midcareer profes- sionals seeking new skills.
The Academy, Practice, and Credential modules are all designed cooperatively by
industry and universities. The modules provide training in high-priority skills in the
marketplace, as well as in specific skills and applications prioritized by companies. AIChE
will make shared content available for use in universities, allowing university education to
shift in emphasis toward ex- ploring new engineering or business problems. New internship
models to engage students with market problems are also under development, and companies
can engage with classroom exer- cises in order to share case studies. Finally, “Lessons from
Leaders” is an emerging module in which senior leaders share their career experiences and
learning with students considering var- ious career options.
A related scholarship program for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), the
Future of STEM Scholars Initiative (FOSSI), is providing expanded opportunities for students
with limited exposure to or understanding of possible market options. Building on studies of
disruptive innovation provides a major opportunity to create new education models for histori-
cally excluded groups through partnerships among companies, community colleges, and
histor- ically Black colleges and universities. Such models would provide a low-cost pathway
to high- quality jobs with a direct connection to market need while at the same time
broadening outreach to a more diverse talent pool.

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New Directions for Chemical
Engineering

250 New Directions for Chemical Engineering

CONCLUSION

The core chemical engineering curriculum has contributed to the long-term suc-
cess and impact of the discipline. The undergraduate curriculum provides a
mathematical framework for designing and describing (electro-/photo-/bio-) chemical
and physical pro- cesses across spatial and temporal scales of many orders of
magnitude. Data science and statistics may be delivered most effectively within a
separate course embedded within the core curriculum and taught with specific emphasis
on matters of chemistry and engineer- ing. At the same time, experiential learning is
important, and the majority of industrial and academic chemical engineers interviewed
by the committee stressed the importance of internships and other practical experiences.
However, far fewer internships are availa- ble than the number of students who would
benefit from them, and the density of the core undergraduate curriculum leaves few
openings for incorporating an additional hands-on laboratory course earlier in the
curriculum.
The current chemical engineering curriculum is well suited to preparing students
for a wide variety of industrial roles. Graduate research increasingly encompasses a di-
verse range of topics that do not all require the level of traditionally curated knowledge
currently delivered in graduate chemical engineering curricula, and so graduate curricula
may need to be adjusted. Internships for graduate students are currently rare, and new
models will need to address issues of equity and inclusion, suitable compensation, intel-
lectual property considerations, and adequate mentoring of interns.
Women and members of historically excluded groups are underrepresented in
chemical engineering relative to the general population, even by comparison with the
chemical and biological sciences and related fields. Diversifying the profession is essen-
tial to the field’s survival and potential for impact. At all points along their academic
path, chemical engineering students need role models and effective, inclusive mentors,
includ- ing mentors that reflect the diversity of backgrounds needed by the field.
Leveraging of professional societies and associated affinity groups could provide
valuable support for people of diverse backgrounds entering the field. Strong university
support for student chapters of professional organizations would improve access and
success.
The general affordability of community colleges is a major attraction for a
diverse body of students, ranging from budget-minded high school seniors to
nontraditional stu- dents. Increased engagement of transfer students is an untapped
opportunity for chemical engineering to broaden participation in and access to the
profession. Students from 2-year colleges and those who change their major to chemical
engineering would benefit from a redesign of the curriculum allowing them to complete
the degree in less time. Better aca- demic and social support structures are needed to
enable successful pathways for these students. New methods for offering portions of the
curriculum in a distributed manner and more general restructuring may require
flexibility in curriculum design and changes in university policies, graduation, and
accreditation requirements.

Recommendation 9-1: Chemical engineering departments should consider revisions

to their undergraduate curricula that would

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New Directions for Chemical
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Training and Fostering the Next Generation of Chemical Engineers 251

 help students understand how individual core concepts merge into the
practice of chemical engineering,
 include earlier and more frequent experiential learning through
physical laboratories and virtual simulations, and
 bring mathematics and statistics into the core curriculum in a more
structured manner by either complementing or replacing some of the
ed- ucation that currently occurs outside the core curriculum.

Recommendation 9-2: To provide graduate students with experiential learning op-

portunities, universities, industry, funding agencies, and the American Institute of
Chemical Engineers should coordinate to revise graduate training programs and
funding structures to provide opportunities for and remove barriers to systematic
placement of graduate students in internships.

Recommendation 9-3: To increase recruitment and retention of women and Black,

Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) individuals in undergraduate programs,
chemical engineering departments should emphasize opportunities for chemical
en- gineers to make positive societal impacts, and should build effective mentoring
and support structures for students who are members of such historically excluded
groups. To provide more opportunities for BIPOC students, departments should
consider redesigning their undergraduate curricula to allow students from 2-year
colleges and those who change their major to chemical engineering to complete
their degree without extending their time to degree, and provide the support
structures necessary to ensure the retention and success of transfer students.

Recommendation 9-4: To increase the recruitment of students from historically ex-

cluded communities into graduate programs, chemical engineering departments
should consider revising their admissions criteria to remove barriers faced by, for
example, students who attended less prestigious universities or did not participate
in undergraduate research. To provide more opportunities for women and Black,
In- digenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) individuals, departments should
welcome students with degrees in related disciplines and consider additions to their
graduate curricula that present the core components of the undergraduate
curriculum tai- lored for postgraduate scientists and engineers.

Recommendation 9-5: A consortium of universities, together with the American In-

stitute of Chemical Engineers, should create incentives and practices for building
and sharing curated chemical engineering content for use across universities and
industry. Such sharing could reduce costs and advance broad access to high-
quality content intended both for students and for professional engineers intending
to fur- ther their education or change industries later in their careers.

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New Directions for Chemical
Engineering

252 New Directions for Chemical Engineering

Recommendation 9-6: Universities, industry, federal funding agencies, and profes-

sional societies should jointly develop and convene a summit to bring together per-
spectives represented by existing practices across the ecosystem of stakeholders in
chemical engineering professional development. Such a summit would explore the
needs, barriers, and opportunities around creating a technology-enabled learning
and innovation infrastructure for chemical engineering, extending from university
education through to the workplace.

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