Caroline Baillie, PhD

Professor of Praxis, Integrated Engineering and Director of Engineering Justice
- PhD, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey
- MHEd, University New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- BSc, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey
- PGCE Elementary, University of Sunderland, UK
- Forest School Leader Level 3, Nature Workshops, UK
Professor Caroline Baillie joined USD as Professor of Praxis in Engineering and Social Justice, spring 2017. Prior to coming to USD, Baillie served as Chair and Professor of Engineering Education at UWA, Perth and held appointments at the University of Sydney, Imperial College, UK and Queens University, Canada.
Baillie is a materials engineer, with expertise in engineering education and critical social studies as well as leading many local and international community development programs. She is particularly interested in ways in which engineers can work with other professionals and local community groups, to co-create solutions for the environment as well as social problems.
In addition to her technical and educational background, Baillie is a trained Forest School leader, mediator and therapist and she brings this expertise to her research and development work as well as her teaching. She conducts both theoretical and educational studies related to engineering and community engagement and in 2006 founded Waste for Life (wasteforlife.org) to enable community groups to develop recycling waste businesses. Baillie also co-founded the Engineering, Social Justice and Peace network (esjp.org) in 2004, which hosted its annual conference at USD in 2018.
She is a Thomson Reuters Highly cited author, with over 200 publications, papers and books on materials science, engineering education and engineering and social justice. In addition to her academic work, Caroline runs a theatre company entitled Critical Stage (www.criticalstage.co.uk) through which she adopts theatre and film as a platform for education around intangible social issues, including those related to technical development.
Areas of Expertise
engineering and social justice, waste recycling, community development, forest school pedagogy
Scholarly Work
- With Kabo, J. and Nieusma, D., "Engineering Students’ Conceptualizations of Sustainability," 2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), October 2020.
- With Lord, S., Roberts, C., Perry, L., and Dalrymple, O., "Intellectual journeys in different directions: Engineering and social science students’ expanding understanding of the role of engineering proceedings," American Society Engineering Education Annual Conference, June 2020.
- "Engineering and Social Justice" in Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Engineering. New York, NY: Routledge Publishing, 2020, p. Chapter 50.
- With Dowling, D., Hadgraft, R., Carew, A., Mccarthy, T., and Hargreaves, D., Engineering your future: An Australian Guide. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing, 2020.
- With James G. Kohl, Andrew G. Kohl, Angel Licea-Claverie, Arturo Zizumbo-Lopez, Randika Jayasinghe, and Mascareneous Ashokcline, "Mechanical and thermal characterization of as-received recycled polyethylene filled with rice husk and their relationship to the end use of these composites," Polymer-Plastics Technology and Materials , 2020.
- With Eric Feinblatt, Joel Alejandro Mejia, Glevys Rondon, Jordan Aitken, Rita Armstrong, Vicki Bilro, Andy Fourie, and Kylie Macpherson, Socially Just Mining: Rethoric or Reality? Lessons from Peru. San Rafael, CA: Morgan & Claypool, 2020.
- With R. Jayasinghe and N. Liyanage, "Sustainable waste management through eco-entrepreneurship: an empirical study of waste upcycling eco-enterprises in Sri Lanka," Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management, pp. 1-9, 2020.
- With Male, S., "Assisting engineering students along a liminal pathway and assessing their progress.," Australian Journal of Engineering Education, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 25-34, 2019.
- With Randika Jayasinghe and Michael Azariadis, "Waste, Power, and Hegemony: A Critical Analysis of the Wastescape of Sri Lanka," Journal of Environment and Development, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 173-195, 2019.