The Graduate Student Association (GSA) and the Graduate College welcomed all students, faculty and staff to join us for Books & Bagels: Conversations on Interdisciplinary Research Program on Friday, February 26, 2016 at 12 p.m. in the Graduate Student Lounge, located in Main 010. We proudly hosted the following outstanding speakers and moderator. All the photos from the event can be found in the February 2016 Books & Bagels photo album and the video can be found in the Books & Bagels video archive.

Helene Maliko-Abraham

Persistence to Completion of Doctoral Degrees in Light of Student Creativity 
EdD in Educational Leadership and Management (with a Concentration in Creativity and Innovation)
School of Education

Summary: This research explores the possession of creativity and the related factors of tolerance for ambiguity and risk taking of students who are either currently enrolled and persisting, or those who have successfully completed their doctoral degree program of choice. This mixed methods convergent parallel research design will focus on doctoral student persistence of students that are currently enrolled in various stages of their respective doctoral programs and those students who have graduated. Scholars have studied attrition rates in doctoral programs for decades in an effort to ameliorate it. One solution may lie within the selection criteria of potential students into doctoral programs. Creativity assessments could potentially be included in the current battery of selection criteria for admission to identify those applicants who are creative problem solvers, especially those who tolerate ambiguity and are risk takers.

Daniel Christe

3D Computational Modeling of Knitted Functional Fabrics
BS/MS in Materials Science & Engineering (BS) and Mechanical Engineering (MS)
College of Engineering

Summary: Functional fabrics (e.g. “smart” textiles) constitute an emerging class of tunable engineering materials that can “see, hear, sense, and adapt”, envisioned as device platforms for applications including consumer wearable electronics, biomedical monitoring, compliant robotics, and national defense. However, complex textile mechanics pose a formidable challenge for predictive design and manufacturing of advanced functional fabrics, forcing a “trial-and-error” design methodology. Daniel Christe is part of an interdisciplinary Drexel team working to develop computational models of functional fabrics driven by experimental information across scales. This work involves the formulation of a structural building block based on measurements of knitted fabrics. These building blocks form the basis for 3D digital models to simulate the mechanical response of fabrics under applied loads, providing valuable feedback to design and manufacturing of functional fabrics. 

James Herbert, PhD

Moderator
Graduate College Dean
Executive Vice Provost
Professor of Psychology