Chair and Professor, Integrated Engineering
Integrated Engineering Honors Faculty Liaison
- PhD, Stanford University, Electrical Engineering
- MS, Stanford University, Electrical Engineering
- BS, Cornell University, Electrical Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering
Susan M. Lord, PhD, is a Fellow of the IEEE and the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE). Dr. Lord’s teaching interests include electronics, optoelectronic materials and devices, service-learning, feminist pedagogy and lifelong learning. From 1993-1997, Dr. Lord taught at Bucknell University. Her industrial experience includes AT&T Bell Laboratories, General Motors Laboratories, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and SPAWAR Systems Center. In 2012, she taught at Southeast University in Nanjing, China. From 2006-2016, she was chair of Electrical Engineering at USD.
Dr. Lord’s research has been supported by several National Science Foundation (NSF) grants from programs including CAREER, gender in science and engineering (GSE), and research in engineering education (REE). Her research focuses on the study and promotion of diversity in engineering including student pathways, diverse populations including Latinos and military veterans, and cross-cultural studies with non U.S. students. She is part of the USD team working on “Developing Changemaking Engineers”, funded by the NSF Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) program.
Since entering college, Dr. Lord has been committed to increasing diversity in engineering particularly supporting women and underrepresented minorities. She co-authored The Borderlands of Education: Latinas in Engineering with Dr. Michelle Madsen Camacho of the USD Sociology Department. She and her research team have received best paper awards from the Journal of Engineering Education and the IEEE Transactions on Education and the 2013 WEPAN Betty Vetter Award for Research.
Dr. Lord is active in the international engineering education community. She served as general co-chair of the 2006 Frontiers in Education (FIE) Conference and as the vice president (2007-2008) and president (2009-2010) of the IEEE Education Society. Dr. Lord is an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Education and the Journal of Engineering Education. She joined the National Effective Teaching Institute (NETI) facilitation team in 2015 conducting annual workshops for engineering educators.
For more information on Dr. Lord's NSF Veterans grant, click here.
Scholarly Work
- With John E. Mitchell, "Ethical issues in Electrical and Electronic Engineering" in The Routledge International Handbook of Engineering Ethics Education. Editors: Tom Børsen, Shannon Chance, Diana Adela Martin, Gunter Bombaerts, Roland Tormey, and Thomas Taro Lennerfors, London, UK: Routledge Publishing, 2024, p. 698.
- With Austin Peters, "'These different ideas, traditions, and values make my thinking unique and creative': Bringing Native Hawaiian ways of knowing to engineering education," IEEE Transactions on Education, 2023.
- With M. H. Forbes, "A Place-Based Sustainability Approach to Learning about Photovoltaic Solar Energy," Trends in Higher Education, vol. 2, 2, pp. 306-319, 2023.
- With M. W. Ohland, M. K. Orr, R. A. Layton, R. A. Long, C. E. Brawner, H. Ebrahiminejad, B. A. Martin, G. D. Ricco, and L. Zahedi, "MIDFIELD: A Resource for Longitudinal Student Record Research," IEEE Transactions on Education, vol. 65, pp. 245-256, 2022.
- With Brooke C. Coley and Denise R. Simmons, "Dissolving the Margins: LEANING Into an Anti-racist Review Process," Journal of Engineering Education, vol. 110, 1, pp. 8-14, 2021.
- With L. A. Gelles, J. A. Mejia, G. D. Hoople, and D. A. Chen, "Is it all about efficiency? Exploring Students’ Conceptualizations of Sustainability in an Introductory Energy Course," Sustainability, vol. 13, p. 7188, 2021.
- With L. A. Gelles, "Pedagogical Considerations and Challenges for Sociotechnical Integration within a Materials Science Class," International Journal of Engineering Education (IJEE), vol. 37, 5, pp. 1244-1260, 2021.
- With G. D. Hoople, D. A. Chen, L. A. Gelles, F. Bilow, and J. A. Mejia, "An Integrated Approach to Energy Education in Engineering," Sustainability, vol. 12, 21, p. 9145, 2020.
- With L. Gelles, G. D. Hoople, D. A. Chen, and J. A. Mejia, "Compassionate Flexibility and Self-Discipline: Student Adaptation to Emergency Remote Teaching in an Integrated Engineering Energy Course during COVID-19," Education Sciences, vol. 10, 11, p. 304, 2020.
- With M. W. Ohland, R. A. Layton, and M. M. Camacho, "Beyond Pipeline and Pathways: Ecosystem Metrics," Journal of Engineering Education, vol. 108, 1, pp. 32-56, 2019.