Graduate students
The lab's seven PhD students in engineering education, each working on a question of their own.
Benjamin E. Chaback
PhD student since February 2025
Benjamin (Ben) Chaback is a Ph.D. student in Virginia Tech's Department of Engineering Education. He holds a BS in Aerospace Engineering and a MS in Systems Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. As part of his PhD dissertation, he is focusing on how students and instructors of the engineering sciences adopt and use technology to support learning and instruction of these courses. He has worked as an external reviewer for NASA's Human Research Program and the NASA TechLeap Challenge, the Program Coordinator for Undergraduate Research at Embry-Riddle, and currently as a Graduate Research Assistant at Virginia Tech.
Open education resources, middle years of engineering, artificial intelligence and assessment, undergraduate research experiences, robotics education, engineering workforce development
Mitch Gerhardt
PhD student since August 2024
Mitch is a second-year doctoral student in the Department of Engineering Education and a master's student in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech, with prior experience as a software engineer before returning to academia. His research concerns what and how students think about engineering knowledge.
Epistemic thinking, graduate STEM education, natural language processing
- CAREER: Minds and Machines: Exploring Engineering Faculty Member Mental Models of Generative AI and Instructional Decisions
- Automated Analysis of Knowledge Types in Computer Science Textbooks: A Natural Language Processing Approach to Understanding Epistemic Climate
- Using Generative Text Models to Create Qualitative Codebooks for Student Evaluations of Teaching
Nathan Li
PhD student since August 2025
How might researchers and educators better understand how engineers consider social and ecological factors in their designs?
Nathan is a second-year Engineering Education PhD student at Virginia Tech with a background in building design, building science, sustainable energy, and community-based research. Nathan hopes to better understand how students think about environmental and social problems and how they envision themselves and their careers as solutions to those problems. Nathan has also worked in the construction industry as a sustainability consultant helping buildings obtain green building certifications recognizing impacts in energy, environment, health, and wellness.
Sustainability and climateEthics, equity, and responsibilityHow students learn and experience engineeringThe field and its institutionsTechnology policy Also design thinking, sustainability, ethics, mental models, governance & corporate social responsibility, data centers & energy transitions, research methods
Kylee Shiekh
PhD student since February 2025
Kylee Shiekh is a Ph.D. student in Virginia Tech's Department of Engineering Education. She holds a B.S. in Computational Applied Mathematics and M.S. in Quantum Engineering from Colorado School of Mines. Her research focuses on the intersection between engineering education and emerging technologies including artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum technologies. She studies how students and faculty alike engage with AI and quantum technology, particularly with respect to how educational environments shape students' engagement.
Computer science education, computing workforce development, emerging technologies, quantum education, engineering assessment, hidden curriculum