Embry-Riddle partners with private and public entities to assist in developing solutions to today's and tomorrow's aeronautical and aerospace problems. Here at the world's largest aviation-oriented university, our focus on applied research is unique.
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41-50 of 233 results

  • STEM Literacy and Service-Learning

    PI Sally Blomstrom

    This service-learning project investigates STEM literacy and involves students in sections of Speech (COM 219). Students create an audio tour about a specimen from the A. Jewell Schock Natural History Museum. The audio tour includes the specimen’s scientific name, a description of its biology, its habitat, its diet, and the forces of flight related to the specimen as well as its biomechanics.

    They will be instructed to develop content which includes descriptive information about the biology of the specimen (science), the biomechanics used (engineering), dimensions of the specimen and its rate of speed (math). They will use technology in the process of creating and sending the audio files, and the museum will use technology to make the files available to visitors of the museum, both online and in person (technology). The goal is to have students engage in research on a STEM topic and then communicate their knowledge to a general audience using technology. We are investigating if, and to what extent, the project increases STEM literacy which is defined as a demonstrated ability to read STEM text, tables, and graphics with understanding, to evaluate the quality of the read information, to identify relevant information and incorporate that information in written or oral communication.

    Categories: Faculty-Staff

  • Humanistic STEM: Blending Humanities and STEM to Increase Undergraduate Student Engagement, Knowledge, and Skills

    PI Debra Bourdeau

    NSF IUSE #2120807

    Categories: Faculty-Staff

  • Exploration: Aerospace Student-Teacher Program for Innovation, Research, and Education (ASPIRE)

    PI Samantha Bowyer

    CO-I Ronnie Mack

    Aerospace Student-Teacher Program for Innovation, Research, and Education (ASPIRE) aims to provide high school students and educators with the opportunity to immerse themselves in experiential learning in the scientific environments and receive mentorship from trained scientists.



    ASPIRE program aims to strengthen the future of advanced manufacturing in aircraft and air mobility where 100 high school students across three to four schools per year (total 11 different high schools in 3 years) and 100 educators will be engaged per year. Among the high school students, 20 students will be selected and involved in an eight-week summer interdisciplinary research program (SKY-CARE: Summer Program for High School Youth in Career Aerospace, Aviation, and Research Education) with dedicated mentors from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU). Among the 100 educators, 20 educators will be given a classroom supplies grant to provide experiential learning activities to their students.

    Categories: Faculty-Staff

  • Student Perceptions of Pilot Pathway Programs and Motivation to Join

    PI Lauren Burmester

    CO-I Becky Lutte

    This study seeks to explore what motivates university students to join airline pathway programs, their perceptions of the benefits and drawbacks, and how these perceptions can inform strategies to enhance program effectiveness and increase participation.

    The research will be conducted in two phases. The first phase, supported by the College of Aviation's Strategic Initiative Grant, involved a comprehensive literature review and the development of a survey instrument and interview protocol. The second phase, supported by the FIRST Grant, employed a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews to gain a deeper understanding of student decision-making. Participants include university students enrolled in aviation flight programs, with a target sample of 200 survey respondents and 10-15 interviewees. Data collection involved online structured questionnaires, distributed via Qualtrics, and in-depth interviews to explore personal experiences and expectations.

    Quantitative data will be analyzed using statistical techniques, including descriptive statistics and chi-square tests, while qualitative data will undergo thematic analysis. A comparative analysis will identify differences in perceptions between participants and non-participants of pathway programs. The findings will provide valuable insights into student motivations and inform strategies to maximize the impact of these programs, addressing the broader challenges facing the aviation workforce. Key deliverables will include a literature review, an annotated bibliography, a survey instrument, an interview protocol, and recommendations for further research funding and presentation at an industry conference. The final manuscript will be submitted to a peer-reviewed academic journal, with results presented at an industry conference.

    Categories: Faculty-Staff

  • Developing and 3D Printing sUAS Fixed-Wing Aircraft for Educational Use

    PI Joseph Cerreta

    CO-I David Thirtyacre

    CO-I Scott Burgess

    The capability of commercial off-the-shelf 3D printers has increased rapidly over the past few years, and the ability to design, print and assemble sUAS could save academic institution resources and provide students excellent training.


    Multirotor sUAS have limited endurance, range and payload carrying capabilities. Recently, the ability to print fixed-wing sUAS platforms from commercial-off-the-shelf 3D printers have lowered the barrier to entry for meeting the demands from industry with systems that are low cost and can carry electro-optical and thermal infrared sensors, multispectral and LIDAR sensors. Additionally, the advent of fixed-wing full motion video (FMV) capable drones has ushered in a new era of educational possibilities. The integration of 3D-printed fixed wing sUAS in the online classroom presents several opportunities.

    Categories: Faculty-Staff

  • Developing Autonomous, Targeted Feedback in Precalculus

    PI Darryl Chamberlain

    The overriding goal of this project is to investigate student knowledge in a Precalculus course at ERAU-W in order to construct autonomous, targeted feedback for free-responses questions to enhance students' online learning. This will be accomplished by analyzing student responses to exam questions and interviewing students to probe how their mathematical conceptions correspond to their exam responses. 

    Categories: Faculty-Staff

  • A Boltzmann Simulator for Porous Media Flows

    PI Leitao Chen

    ​This project develops numerical simulations through parallel development of a Boltzmann model to capture and elucidate multiscale thermos-fluids behaviors in porous media, as well as the fluid-solid interactions.

    ​To accurately simulate porous media flow problem, a kinetic model based on the Boltzmann equation (BE) was developed. Two primary reasons justified the choice of a BE-based approach over conventional Navier-Stokes (N-S) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods. First, the fluid flow within porous media often occurs in extremely narrow channels, representing high-Knudsen-number flow regimes. The Knudsen number (Kn), defined as the ratio of molecular mean free path to the smallest channel dimension, indicates that traditional N-S equations are physically inadequate for accurately describing these flow conditions. Conversely, BE-based models are well-established to yield physically accurate results for high-Kn flows. Second, from a computational standpoint, the BE inherently involves a simpler mathematical structure due to its linear advection term, substantially reducing computational overhead compared to the nonlinear N-S equations. This simplification significantly improves computational efficiency, especially critical for simulating flow within complex porous structures. To better capture the complex boundaries in porous media, a meshless discretization method of the BE has been developed in this project. This meshless approach entirely eliminates dependency on mesh generation, offering significant advantages in accurately simulating flow through porous media.

    Categories: Faculty-Staff

  • Project Global Officer

    PI Aaron Clevenger

    Project GO provide's overseas language instruction consisting of a minimum of 8 weeks and/or 150 contact hours (per grant program) to ROTC students nationwide with the goal of helping student to reach an ILR 1 proficiency level in a critical language: Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan, and Arabic in Jordan. All students should reach the objective of successfully applying the target language and cultural knowledge in actual communication with native speakers.

    Categories: Faculty-Staff

  • Pure Water Project (PWP)

    PI Marc Compere

    Pure Water Project aims to improve the health and sustainability of individual communities in the Dominican Republic by installing a solar-powered water purification system. Embry-Riddle students design, build, test and deliver a solar water purifier to carefully selected communities in the Dominican Republic and launch water selling businesses to benefit the local community’s health and economy.



    Many in the Dominican Republic either pay for clean water or live with chronic intestinal sickness from contaminated water. Our solar water purifier is designed to provide clean drinking water for 500 adults per day. It generates 1000 gallons of clean water daily, which is enough to bottle and sell to the surrounding community.

    This project is an ideal intersection of humanitarian aid and engineering. Our students design and build Embry-Riddle's solar-powered water purifier for delivery to a carefully selected community each year. Students learn how solar power systems work with batteries, pumps and filters to construct a purifier that runs entirely from the sun. This project provides our students a global perspective and makes them better engineers through their efforts to achieve goals despite the dynamic, fluid environment in a different culture.

    Categories: Faculty-Staff

  • Virtual Communities of Practice: Scaling, Belonging, and Effective Feedback

    PI Cristina Cottom

    CO-I Angela Atwell

    CO-I Lisa Martino

    CO-I Sara Ombres

    The purpose of this research study is to extend CTLE-W's previous research on virtual faculty learning communities (VCoP) by testing a new VCoP for scalability with an expanded participation pool. This study also seeks to increase the sense of belonging among non-collocated faculty participants and to use the VCoP to provide continuing education on effective feedback practices.This VCoP and the research study will last for 8 weeks during the fall and spring. As part of the participation in the VCoP faculty will complete several online asynchronous activities using VoiceThread to discuss effective feedback practices, as well as a survey at the beginning and end of their VCoP experience. 



    This research study is an extension and expansion of the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence’s existing VCoP. In 2016, our research team was awarded a grant from the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network to create a VCoP tailored specifically to online adjunct faculty, which yielded positive findings. In this current study, we were awarded additional grant funds from POD to build upon this success by designing a VCoP that recruits from our entire faculty pool in order to measure how it affects their sense of belonging and to test the framework we created for scalability. In addition, this collaborative experience will not focus on teaching in a single modality, but will instead address a shared practice that is relevant to all instructors. Regardless of modality, all instructors can improve effective feedback practices. Therefore, in this extended and expanded VCoP all faculty will have an opportunity to explore practices around effective feedback. This research will contribute to the existing literature by studying the scalability of VCoPs in faculty development settings and test how participation in VCoPs promotes belonging among dispersed faculty members teaching in multiple modalities. In addition, this study will also result in the production of documents that will facilitate future VCoP development and will generate valuable co-created knowledge on effective feedback. This study will employ a mixed-methods design that will use both quantitative and qualitative data to analyze the results of the survey. In addition, data will be collected from VoiceThread, facilitator reflections, observation notes, and artifact analysis. 

    Categories: Faculty-Staff

41-50 of 233 results