Lifelong Project Impact

As director of WPI’s Center for Project-Based Learning (PBL), Dr. Kris Wobbe has worked with peers across higher education, nationally and internationally, to facilitate the advancement of project-based learning, tailored for their students, their curriculum, and their institutions.  She draws upon over 25 years of extensive PBL experience including leading a first-year, interdisciplinary, project-based program and integration of projects into coursework as a professor of biochemistry. 

The goal of Professor Bakermans' research program is to promote the conservation of biodiversity by maintaining viable wildlife populations across the landscape. Specifically, her research addresses the influence of anthropogenic disturbances, like forest management, urbanization, and agriculture, on wildlife. She says it's her goal to open students' eyes to the evolving and interconnected world of science by using my research as an example of how to assimilate science and the role of conservation in today's world.

Bakermans possesses a strong commitment to student education, with a goal of stimulating students' critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. Recently, she has been on a journey with students to open classroom content and discussions in an interdisciplinary and inclusive way. In her courses, students are challenged to rethink their role as active knowledge producers beyond the class.

Professor Boudreau's research in literature, culture, and education is unified by broad concerns for justice, inclusion, and social progress. Her literary scholarship considers the ways literature helps to advance social progress and justice, while her educational research investigates educational environments and works to develop pedagogies and content that open STEM education to broader populations by bringing the humanities and arts to scientific and technical subjects.

Her expertise in project-based learning includes guiding students to bring literary analysis to wider audiences and in new forms: a family narrative of covid in the same neighborhood where the Combahee Women's Collective first theorized intersectionality; a code-based "choose-your-own-adventure" using text from a Toni Morrison novel to demonstrate the extent to which skin color was (and was not) deterministic in early colonial days; a literary analysis of Namibia's first novel to help WPI students understand colonialism and resistance in a country where they do their interdisciplinary projects. She has also advised student projects that led to campus and community improvements, such as a student-run bike-share program at WPI; revisions to New Student Orientation to support introverts; and hands-on, integrative STEAM assignments now used in local middle schools and in WPI's Chemical Engineering curriculum.

Professor Davis is a scholar of 20th century U.S. history, focusing specifically on topics of race, gender, legal history, and critical prison studies.

Professor Gericke is a biophysical chemist studying lipid mediated protein functions using calorimetric, spectroscopic, and advanced microscopic techniques. An area of particular interest is phosphoinositide mediated signaling.

Professor Heinricher is the Dean of Undergraduate Studies. As dean, he is responsible for ensuring the quality and effectiveness of all aspects of the undergraduate experience at WPI, providing leadership and working with the faculty to implement new undergraduate curricular and structural changes. He is also a Professor of Mathematics.

Professor Rodriguez's research program uses a biopsychosocial approach to study health and health behaviors. She conducts research at the intersection of social phenomena (such as weight stigma), biomarkers (such as the stress hormone cortisol), and psychological factors (such as perceived stress and body image). Her work follows two core arcs investigating (1) biopsychosocial predictors and consequences of eating, not eating (i.e. dieting), and obesity; and (2) weight stigma and its consequences for physical and mental health, which she is currently extending into the novel context of pregnancy and postpartum health.

Professor Pfeifer’s research focus in philosophy is on contemporary continental philosophy, social and political philosophy, global justice, and development ethics. He teaches philosophy courses, international studies courses, and for the Great Problems Seminars—WPI’s distinctive first-year, project-based, interdisciplinary program that explores the many facets of a great global problem.

In addition, in the area of pedagogical research, Pfeifer, in collaboration with his colleague, Elisabeth Stoddard, has developed tools to discuss and address issues of bias and stereotyping on project teams, which are included in this handbook. 

Professor Rissmiller has served in a number of leadership positions associated with WPI's global studies, including most recently as The Global School dean, ad interim. He also teaches government, law, and public policy, directs the Pre-Law program, and oversees the Law and Technology minor. His own research is in energy policy. His studies have addressed the restructuring of the electric industry, energy conservation in hospitals, and the Green Communities Program in Massachusetts, among others.

As The Global School dean, ad interim, Rissmiller directs WPI’s signature Global Projects Program—a program that uses project-based learning to immerse students in hands-on experiences in a network of over 50 project centers around the world.  He is also director of the Washington Project Center and has advised students at project centers in Washington, London, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and Zurich.

He has served 6 years on WPI’s Undergraduate Outcomes Assessment Committee.

Professor San Martin is a historian of science, environmental change, and public policy. His work examines the history of the science-policy interface to inform contemporary debates on environmental governance. I specialize in international development, global environmental policy, climate justice, animal rights, conservation, and sustainable development in Latin America and the Global South.

Mimi Sheller is the Dean of The Global School at WPI. She is a widely cited expert in the post-colonial context of the Caribbean, with particular expertise on Haiti. Sheller also founded and directed the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, an interdisciplinary field that studies the movement of people, objects, and information, as well as the complex new mobilities (and immobilities) that are afforded by changing technologies and infrastructures. Sheller can also provide insight into the following:

• Caribbean migration
• Climate migration
• Lifestyle mobilities
• Labor migration and nomadic workers
• Deportation from the United States

She is the author of seven books, eight co-edited books, and 125 refereed journal articles and book chapters as well as the founding co-editor of the journal Mobilities. since. In addition she has consulted for international agencies, including the World Bank, and for such companies as Michelin, and has given dozens of keynote talks and invited lectures at leading universities in the United States and Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia, Australia, and Europe.

Professor Smith is an award-winning game designer. Her interdisciplinary work merges technical research in AI and HCI with creative practice in textiles and games, with a view towards addressing social issues and broadening participation and perspectives on computing.

Sarah Stanlick, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in The Global School at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Her research interests include vulnerable populations, health and human rights, global and local citizenship, and technology's impact on empowerment and capacity to build community. It is also of note, she assisted the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power during her time at Harvard.

Professor Stanlick directs WPI’s signature first-year experience program, the Great Problems Seminar. She is also responsible for the delivery and support of global project-based learning through the Global Projects Program, and teaches social science research methods for students of all backgrounds and majors in preparation for the interactive qualifying project (IQP), a 7-week project with external sponsors. Her commitment to transformative and inclusive learning that engages students as active agents includes her regular participation in faculty learning communities at WPI and collaborative work to advance the integration of open educational resources and open pedagogical practices across the WPI curriculum.

Professor Stoddard is a human-environment geographer who is interested in the intersection of nature, society, and social justice. She looks at the ways in which farmed animal production can create environmental hazards and injustice for local communities, including water, air, and soil pollution, as well as the spread of disease. She examines how a changing climate and global economy can exacerbate these issues. Stoddard also looks at the ability of social movements to make powerful changes, especially in the age of social media.

In addition, in the area of pedagogical research, Stoddard, in collaboration with her colleague, Geoff Pfeifer, has developed tools to discuss and address issues of bias and stereotyping on project teams, which are included in this handbook. She also has experience in developing and teaching projects in the first-year, projects that integrate STEM and social justice, projects in environmental studies, and community-based projects.  

Professor Telliel teaches a range of courses on ethics, rhetoric, religion and culture, and science and technology studies. His current research examines the ethical implications of technologist's work as designers and maintainers of socio-technical systems, such as what counts as a "social and ethical issue" from technologists' perspective and in what ways do they engage with questions of social complexity, diversity, and inequality? He is also part of several interdisciplinary initiatives at WPI, including a research project on robots in the future workplace and another one on social design in development engineering.

As director of WPI’s Center for Project-Based Learning (PBL), Dr. Kris Wobbe has worked with peers across higher education, nationally and internationally, to facilitate the advancement of project-based learning, tailored for their students, their curriculum, and their institutions.  She draws upon over 25 years of extensive PBL experience including leading a first-year, interdisciplinary, project-based program and integration of projects into coursework as a professor of biochemistry.