A view from Dr. Donna Riley’s presentation on “Energy and Justice: Making the Connections in Engineering Thermodynamics”

Donna Riley earned her B.S.E from Princeton University and her M.S. and Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University.

Dr. Riley on recognizing the gaps in engineering.

Her motivation is bridging the gap she sees between the study of engineering and its application to real world events. She defined energy as a basic human need with choices, global impacts, full of policy and macro-ethical issues. She distinguished thermodynamics as being the study of fossil fuels, heat engines, with a focus on detail, yet lacking input or the study of policies and ethical concepts. In general, thermodynamics is esoteric compared to energy.

Therefore, she questions what should student know about energy.  Should they be introduced to current and emerging technologies? If so, what percentage of the curriculum should be devoted to it?  Traditional courses cover heat engines, heat transfer, fluid dynamics and energy storage but these are all part of the study of energy. Energy, she argues, is more than the study of its fundamental components.  It should incorporate policy analysis with decision making in technical choice, fuel sources, co-construction and macro-ethics.  Justice and energy go hand in hand with decisions on accessing resources, the distribution of use and demand and has ecological consequences. Dr. Riley supports there should be a strategy to aiding students to recognize what they are and are not being taught in their academic courses. To bridge this gap, Dr. Donna Riley introduced her latest research project and textbook companion to address the non-technical ABET material.

As most projects, Dr. Riley’s venture began through research of different adaptations of critical pedagogies; testing them with focus groups and obtaining feedback through group and individual interviews. She centered her book on the objective of taking knowledge, skill and integrating them into innovative pedagogies of independent learning. Her textbook covers energy and thermodynamics through subjects rarely covered in traditional engineering classes: ethics, history, US policy, international perspectives, risk, reliability, safety and sustainability. The book is therefore structured in three parts: foundation, making theory relevant, and application.

As with any project, Dr. Riley encountered challenges. She recounts her struggle in determining who and what was to be included and excluded from her text. In introducing the history of thermodynamics, she would be bringing to light challenges to assumptions made throughout thermo and attempting to cover the dynamic energy policies of the state. Her greatest challenge has been introducing liberal pedagogies that shift the power of education from the professor to the student.  In bridging the gap, the text goes through the global and US demands of energy, its impact on climate changes, making relevant the 1st and 2nd law and property relations to current events while providing applications in new and old world technology choices and usage sectors. Its modules are structured to engage, analyze, reflect and change the traditional approach to thermodynamics. That is why she proposes and answers four questions of Justice:

  • How can thermodynamics and its canons include voices long silenced in history?
  • How is the climate changing and whose responsibility is it?
    1. North vs. South: analyzing the ethics of the Copenhagen (non)-agreement from a variety of philosophical standpoints and examining its stakeholders.
  • How does the US food policy affect the poverty levels?
  • What consequences can be seen from energy technology applications?
    1. Military conflicts and environmental effects.

In the supplemental material she will be publishing, Dr. Riley hopes to provide the means for moral reasoning, critical thinking, social engagement, organization and communication. Though she has yet to settle on a title for her textbook, for further learning, the following texts can help introduce concepts in energy and the justice system.

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