Dr. Patricia (Patsy) Brackin serves as director of Rose-Hulman's engineering design program, joining with colleagues to find ways to incorporate design opportunities throughout a student's four-year college experience—in any major course of study. Dr. Brackin's expertise is in design methodology, creativity and innovation. She also helped develop the Home for Environmentally Responsible Engineering (HERE) program, a living-learning experience for students interested in sustainability and humanitarian engineering. Dr. Brackin also spent 11 years as director of Rose-Hulman's Operation Catapult program, helping introduce high-school seniors to the wonders of science and engineering. She attended Green Belt training to learn how Cummins, Inc. incorporates Six Sigma principles into manufacturing and design processes. In addition, she spent a year’s sabbatical with Eli Lilly learning their processes for developing medical devices. Dr. Brackin was a design engineer for Chicago Bridge and Iron before becoming a college professor. Dr. Brackin was named an ABET Fellow in 2020 and is a big fan of the University of Tennessee Volunteers.
Academic Degrees
- PhD, Georgia Institute of Technology, mechanical engineering, 1997
- MS, University of Memphis, mathematical sciences, 1988
- MS, University of Tennessee, nuclear engineering, 1975
- BS, University of Tennessee, nuclear engineering, 1974
Awards & Honors
- Fellow, ABET, 2020
- Fellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2016
- Dedicate Service Award, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2015
- Best Paper Award, American Society for Engineering Education Conference, 2012
- Best Paper Award, American Society for Engineering Education Conference, 2010
- Fellow, Kern Family Foundation, 2006-07Rosie Award, 麻痘精品 Athletic Department, 1997/2001
Research Experiences
- Six Sigma projects with Koch Materials (now SemMaterials)
Select Publications & Presentations
- tyle Poster Sessions for Formative Inter-Team Feedback in Capstone Courses,” International Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 31, No. 6(B), 1,736-1747, 2015
- Ohland, M., Giurintano, D., Novoselich, B., Brackin, P. and Sangelkar, S., “Supporting Capstone Teams: Lessons from Research on Motivation,” International Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 31, No. 6(B), 1-12, 2015
- Minster, M., House, R., Mueller-Price, J., Brackin, P. and Taylor, C., “Valuing, Learning: Revising a Sustainability Curriculum for First-Year Students,” American Society of Engineering Education Conference, 2015
- Minster, M., Brackin, P., DeVasher, R., Hayes, E., House, R. and Taylor, C., “Sustainability and Professional Identity in Engineering Education,” from the book Higher Education for Sustainability, Routledge Publishing, 107-121, 2013
- Davis, D., Davis, H., Trevisan, M., McCormack, J., Beyerlein, S. Thompson, P., Howe, S., Leiffer, P., Brackin, P., Gerlick, P. and Harrison, R., “Integrated Design Engineering Assessment and Learning System,” from the book Reflection and Metacognition in College Teaching, Sylus Publishing, 2013
Teaching Interests
- Principles of design
- Creativity
- Senior-year capstone courses