Opportunities

This Research Area includes researchers with expertise in K-12 engineering education and engineering educational research, community engagement, institutional and systems theories of change in pursuit of higher education, culturally sustaining mentorship in engineering, assessing technologies, air quality modeling, along with environmental, civil engineering, and transportation justice.

The widespread adoption of EVs in society requires a workforce with experience and expertise in recognizing and redressing environmental and transportation injustices. It also requires a technologically literate citizenry that understands the potential benefits of EVs and can advocate for EV infrastructures within their communities. Developing such a workforce and citizenry requires learning environments that: (a) provide inclusive and expansive opportunities for people to pursue trajectories within EV careers, and (b) have learning environments that prepare the EV workforce of the future to foreground this framework in their work more fully.

To advance implementation of EV technologies, ASPIRE is researching how various stakeholders can partner together to realize (a) Infrastructure and physical structures (e.g., roadway placement); and (b) social structures for governance and decision-making relative to the physical structures.

A team comprised of Pathways faculty has implemented new research and mentorship programs with participants from multiple disciplines across all projects. Data from these programs are being collected over time as part of ASPIRE’s longitudinal work into whether its approaches contribute to positive outcomes among mentors and mentees.

The team also developed a comprehensive school-based curriculum in which middle and high school students engage with environmental justice concepts and use engineering to design solutions that advance environmental justice through EVs. Researchers from across the Projects are developing material in support of this curriculum which is being implemented in public schools.

Partnerships with organizations such as Utah Clean Cities are being used to better understand the health impacts of proposed technologies and hurdles for adoption. This is then impacting how the charging stations of the future concepts can be applied within communities structured around multi-unit dwellings.