Dr. Xinyu Zhang, P.E.

Assistant Professor of Engineering Practice

School of Sustainability Engineering and Environmental Engineering, Purdue University

Dr. Xinyu Zhang is an Assistant Professor of Engineering Practice in the School of Sustainability Engineering and Environmental Engineering (SEE) at Purdue University and a licensed Professional Engineer (PE). She received her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She returned to academia after spending several years in engineering consulting and entrepreneurship and has since been actively engaged in teaching and curriculum innovation for undergraduates, graduates, industrial professionals, and regulators in the fields of environmental, biological, chemical, and civil engineering. She is the PI of two NSF projects: (1) NSF BCSER Award #2450295, “Effective Strategies to Recruit Underserved Students to Baccalaureate Engineering Success and Transition Programs (Recruit-BEST)” and (2) NSF RFE Award #2533640, “Collaborative Research: NLI: Forming Ethical Engineers: Integrating Embodied Carbon Education to Foster Ethical Responsibility in Environmental and Social Sustainability”. 

 

Zhang’s vision for SEE education utilizes a three-pillar approach: (1) enhancing student learning through the application of innovative technologies such as extended reality combined with AI, (2) forming ethical engineers through the integration of sustainability into the engineering curriculum guided by the Engineering for One Planet (EOP) framework, experiential learning, and global competency, and (3) broadening engineering engagement through effective recruitment based on the Diffusion of Innovations theory.

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Research Interests:

• Application of extended reality combined with AI in engineering education

• Sustainability curriculum integration

• Broadening engineering engagement including effective engineering recruitment, STEM education, and workforce development for veterans

• Biomanufacturing workforce training and education

• Student-centered experiential learning and global competency

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Project Highlights: ​​​

• A virtual operational environment of a 30L bioreactor for biomanufacturing and SEE labs 

• NSF RFE Award #2533640, “Collaborative Research: NLI: Forming Ethical Engineers: Integrating Embodied Carbon Education to Foster Ethical Responsibility in Environmental and Social Sustainability”: Sustainability curriculum innovations in multiple institutions

• NSF BCSER Award #2450295, “Effective Strategies to Recruit Underserved Students to Baccalaureate Engineering Success and Transition Programs (Recruit-BEST)”: A mixed-method project on effective recruitment strategies for engineering bridge and success programs.

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For more details, please visit the Projects page.