Chris B. Rogers
Director, Center for Engineering Education and Outreach
Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering

Education
Ph.D., M.S., B.S. (Mechanical Engineering), Stanford University, 1989, 1985, 1984

Research Interests
My research interests are mostly in the area of fluid turbulence, musical instrument design, and robotic control. For a complete explanation of all of my research efforts, go to the lab home page: Tufts University Fluids Turbulence Laboratory >

I also do a lot of work in pre-college education - particularly in the area of K-12 science, math and engineering education. We are trying to bring engineering into the younger grades to excite kids about science and math. Full descriptions of this are at the Center for Engineering Education and Outreach website.

The Center for Engineering Education and Outreach
The Center for Engineering Education and Outreach at Tufts University aims to teach engineering to people of all ages, from the kindergartner, to her parents, to the university liberal arts student.  We believe that in order to make policy decisions in our increasingly technologically dependent world, everyone must have a fundamental understanding of what engineering is and how one designs.  Members of the Center have successfully worked with the Massachusetts Department of Education to design and implement the nation's first engineering standards for K-12 schools.  The Center has worked with Prentice Hall to redesign the middle school science textbooks thus introducing engineering to millions of students a year.  They have worked with LEGO to develop ROBOLAB™, an engineering tool chest of hardware and software used by over ten million students (from kindergarten to college) around the world. ROBOLAB is currently available in 15 different languages and has won prizes in Britain, Switzerland, and the USA.

The Center includes faculty from the engineering and education disciplines in three different areas of concentration: (1) learning how people learn engineering concepts; (2) developing toolsets to teach engineering; and (3) supporting teachers, companies and parents who have brought engineering into the classroom. The CEEO's LEGOEngineering.com website has over a thousand visitors a day.  The CEEO has also developed LEGO Engineering professional development workshops at the national and international level to provide mini courses and community building for educators (over 15 countries and 2000 teachers in the last 4 years).  Review the website for more information.

Professional Positions
2006-2007 Visiting Professor, Tufts University ETH, Zürich, Switzerland
2003-present Director, The Center for Engineering Education and Outreach
2002-2003 Kenan Professor of Distinguished Teaching, Princeton, NJ
2002 Fulbright Senior Scholar, Lincoln University, Christchurch, NZ
2001-present Professor of Mechanical. Eng., Tufts University, Medford, MA
1996-2001 Associate Professor of Mechanical. Eng., Tufts University, Medford, MA
1989-1996 Assistant Professor of Mechanical. Eng., Tufts University, Medford, MA
1996-1997 Visiting Scientist, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
1990 Visiting Scientist, McDonnell Douglas Co., St. Louis, MO

Selected Honors and Awards
2008 ASME Tuft Chapter "Best Professor" Award
2004 Bernstein Faculty Mentor, Tufts University
2004 Best Section Paper, International Conference on Computing (CCCT)
2003 National Science Foundation Director's Distinguished Teaching Scholar Award
2002 Kenan Professorship of Distinguished Teaching, Princeton
2002 LabVIEW Programming Prize, NIWeek,
2000 Best Paper in Computers in Education, ASEE Conference
2000 Robert Knapp Award for Best Paper, ASME Conference
2000-2002 Prizes for ROBOLAB: BETT Best Software Prize (Britain), World Didact Gold Medal (Switzerland), MacWorld (USA) and DIGITA (Germany) prizes
1998 Carnegie Foundation Professor of the Year for Massachusetts
1998 Outstanding Educational Software Prize, National Instruments
1994 Teetor Award for Excellence in Education

Selected Professional Activities

• Overseer, Museum of Science, Boston, MA
• Coordinator, LEGO Engineering Conferences (worldwide)