Ewoldt wins Rose Award for Teaching Excellence

MechSE assistant professor Randy Ewoldt has won the Rose Award for Teaching Excellence, an honor that recognizes instructors who excel at motivating freshman and sophomore students in the College of Engineering. Teachers are nominated for innovative teaching methods and merit in instruction or course design and development. The award, given in the name of Scott Rose, who received his BS in computer engineering in 1987, is presented at the Engineering Faculty Awards Ceremony on April 27.

Ewoldt has led interdisciplinary initiatives both in MechSE and other campus departments. He has been a guest instructor in ARTD 301, an industrial design studio course in which he helped students find creative uses of rheological behavior in a product. For MechSE, Ewoldt integrated a creative design project into Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics and Rheology, a graduate course he taught in fall 2012 and spring 2014.

Outside of class, Ewoldt leads the Rheology Zoo – an outreach program meant to invite underrepresented groups to participate in engineering via a hands-on library of rheologically compelling animals. The Rheology Zoo is the result of a partnership between MechSE and the School of Art and Design at Illinois.

Ewoldt joined MechSE in the fall of 2011. He taught his first classes in Spring 2012. Since then, he has been included every semester in the campus’ “List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students.”