Idalis Villanueva Alarcón, Ph.D., an associate professor, popular mentor and groundbreaking researcher at the University of Florida, has been named the new chair of the Department of Engineering Education at the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering.
She replaces Hans van Oostrom, Ph.D., the department’s founding chair. In 2016, he created the Institute for Excellence in Engineering Education, which evolved into Department of Engineering Education (EEd).
“I want to thank Dr. Hans van Oostrom for starting and leading this department in its early years,” Villanueva Alarcón said.
Villanueva Alarcón is a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) and has written 129 peer-reviewed publications (including 11 book chapters). Her research has secured over $4.6 million in funding and impacted over 11,000 engineering students across from than 60 U.S. colleges and global engineering programs.
“Her pioneering work in hidden curriculum and multimodal methods has set a new standard for improving engineering and computing education programs in the United States and beyond,” said Forrest Masters, Ph.D., interim dean of the College of Engineering.
Villanueva Alarcón also holds one U.S. patent, a provisional patent, and a copyright, Masters added.
“I am excited to be leading the Department of Engineering Education to their next chapter,” she said this week. “Through integration of scientific rigor, engineering & educational technologies, and applied tools, the future of engineering education is bright and ripe with new opportunities and possibilities.”
Before joining UF as an associate professor in 2020, Villanueva Alarcón served as an assistant professor of Engineering Education at Utah State University and, before that, a lecturer in the Fischell Department of Bioengineering at the University of Maryland at College Park.
She holds a doctorate in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the University of Colorado-Boulder and a postdoctoral degree in Analytical Cell Biology from the National Institutes of Health.
“As we welcome Dr. Villanueva Alarcón into this leadership role, I also want to express my deep gratitude to Dr. van Oostrom,” Masters said. “His vision, dedication and service have been instrumental in establishing and shaping the department into what it is today. We appreciate his years of leadership and commitment to engineering education.”