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Logo: ASEE Peer

Rick Blank and Staś Tarchalski, instructors in Johns Hopkins University’s Engineering for Professionals No. 1 ranked online master’s program in Engineering Management, received the 2024 Best Paper Award from the Engineering Management Division of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) at the society’s annual meeting in June.

The award-winning paper, “Preparing Future Generations for Executive Leadership Roles in Technical Organizations,” focuses on the EM program’s capstone course, Executive Technical Leadership. Subjects covered include how the course integrates fundamental EM topics into an applied experience, how the course has evolved to meet changing industry needs, and the significance of recruiting faculty who are senior executives from industry.

At the course’s capstone event—a simulated board meeting where industry guests serve as a board of directors—teams of students acting in the roles of senior technical executives present technical strategy and implementation plans for projects on topics relevant to their careers.

“Working professional students learn best through case studies, active learning, and project-based activity,” Blank says. “We prepare students for technical leadership through applied experiences, course work with a real-life scenarios, and direct input from industry professionals.”

Johns Hopkins EM master’s curriculum is based in data-driven methods for effective learning engagement. Among the program’s defining features are that all courses are designed and taught by working professionals for working professionals and the two-year work requirement for admission, which helps ensure that students have a professional context in which to understand coursework.