Laudation written by Syed Ahmad Helmi Syed Hassan

Let me start by introducing Professor Dr. Khairiyah Mohd Yusof from the beginning of her passion for Engineering Education, and then move from there to where she is now.

It started during the time when she did her master’s at Clemson University, USA in the early 90’s. In between conducting her research, while waiting for the computer simulation to stop, she would go to the department library to read the Chemical Engineering Education (CEE) Journal. When she did her Ph.D. at the University of Waterloo, Canada in the late ’90s, she subscribed the Stanford University Rick Reis’ Tomorrow’s Professor (TP) email list that summarised research findings in higher education once a week that raised pertinent issues in engineering education. Reading the CEE brought about the realization that engineering classroom and curricula issues, design, and practices are important and can be shared and discussed, providing ideas and inspiration to others. The TP articles introduced education principles and research findings, and what those principles and findings might mean when translated into practice in higher education. According to her, the CEE and TP articles showed that education issues, including engineering education, are significant to a wide community of academics.

At the start of her academic career, it became natural for her to think about instructional design grounded in education principles and writing up innovations that were implemented. In 1994, when she was assigned to develop the process control laboratory, she published a paper on the equipment designed and interfaced to a microcomputer for students to conduct experiments to learn about process control and presented it at the first Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Multimedia in Engineering Education Conference at the University of Melbourne in Australia. This was her first experience in writing about engineering education to share her findings.

She started innovating in her classes in the early 2000’s, she was assigned to teach the Process Control and Dynamics course for undergraduate chemical engineering students, a course that was notorious as a “killer” subject. Having read about cooperative learning (CL), she decided to translate what she had read into practice in her classes. At the end of the semester, there was an improvement in students’ results. The systematic scaffolding provided through CL managed to turn the whole class into a supportive learning community to overcome the racial barrier, with the students developing close friendships. Most importantly, through the lively class discussions, students bonded and felt safe to open up, asking questions and offering answers. This marked the start of her practical Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) implementation, with the loop coming full circle with the publication of this effort at a conference in 2003. To engage her students through real-world context, Prof Khairiyah started implementing Problem-Based Learning (PBL) and shared the impact on student learning. She continued to refine and improve her approach, which led her to design Cooperative Problem-based learning (CPBL), which is the infusion of CL principles into the CPBL process. Various research and publications had been devoted to CPBL to help others to effectively implement it in a typical engineering class.

The emergence of engineering education conferences hosted by UTM starting in 2004 encouraged those in the community and even new practitioners to write and publish. Prof Khairiyah had taken this opportunity to organize the bi-annual Regional Conference in Engineering Education, initially as the Secretary and later as the Conference Chair. Using the available funds from these conferences, she invited experts from throughout the world as keynote speakers, bringing the opportunity to learn about various aspects of engineering education. The conferences expanded the engineering education network beyond UTM to the whole of Malaysia and beyond. In addition to the learning opportunities from experts during the conferences, Prof Khairiyah was able to establish a community of practice, which has proved valuable in sustaining scholarly and innovative practices in engineering education.

Her desire to improve engineering education led her to design faculty development modules. In UTM, Prof Khairiyah was responsible for academic staff teaching and learning development programs held under the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL). These experiences, especially those gained while developing modules for the Malaysian Higher Education Leadership Academy (AKEPT), propelled her to systematically develop a four-part series of student-centered learning (SCL) teaching and learning training modules. These modules are very successful, and Prof Khairiyah was invited to conduct the training throughout Malaysia, and other parts of the world such as China, India, Indonesia, Afghanistan, the UK, Turkey, South Africa, Qatar, Colombia and many others. Among the notable training programs offered were those funded by the World Bank to develop educators in institutions of higher learning in Afghanistan over three years, and by the Royal Academy of Engineering to develop academics in Indonesian universities over two years on OBE and SCL.

When the UTM Centre for Engineering Education (CEE) was formed in 2010, Prof Khairiyah was appointed as the Director. The role of the CEE was to develop and assist the Graduate School in managing the PhD program in Engineering Education. The CEE also provides support and resources to the community of practitioners within engineering education for its educators to implement scholarly practices and to conduct education and SoTL research. Other than hosting conferences and developing communities, the CEE also received grants for conducting research and published research books and journal papers in addition to conference publications. Outperforming expectations, UTM's top management at the end of 2013 saw fit to upgrade the CEE to become a research Centre of Excellence.

To introduce the engineering education research community in the region to the worldwide community of engineering education and PBL researchers, CEE hosted the Research in Engineering Education Symposium (REES) in collaboration with the Research in Engineering Education Network (REEN), and the International Research Symposium on PBL (IRSPBL) in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair on PBL in Engineering Education at Aalborg University, Denmark, back-to-back in 2013. These events created interest in scholarly engineering education not only at UTM, but also across Malaysia and Southeast Asia. Most importantly, the conferences provided opportunities for those already involved in engineering education to gauge their work against that within the worldwide community, as well as to create personal ties and get feedback on their work. In 2017, Prof Khairiyah led the CEE to successfully host the World Engineering Education Conference (WEEF) 2017, which had a great impact on showcasing the worldwide emphasis on the importance of engineering education.

Prof Khairiyah led the CEE in conducting higher level research in engineering education, which institutional-level projects. Her research in engineering education ranged from the impact and implementation of Cooperative Problem-based Learning at the course level (problem-solving, teamwork, conation, volition, empathy, sustainable development) to national-level transformation policy for engineering education. She focuses on translating theories and research findings into practice to enhance students' learning and supporting faculty to initiate and sustain change. She has led numerous funded engineering education projects, such as the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education Consortium Grant on Teaching and Learning for 4IR, the Malaysian Council of Engineering Deans project on Future Directions of Engineering Education for Malaysian Public Universities, the World Bank-funded OBE-SCL for Higher Education in Afghanistan, and the UK RAE Engineering X project on Enhancing the Quality of Engineering Education in Indonesia.

Prof. Khairiyah was heavily involved in supporting the engineering education community both at the national and international levels. She is the past President of the Society of Engineering Education Malaysia (2012 – 2021), Vice President of the International Federation of Engineering Education Societies (2012 – 2018), and Board Member of the Research in Engineering Education Network (2012 – 2017). She is on the Editorial and Advisory Boards of several journals, such as the ASEAN Journal of Engineering Education, Journal of Engineering Education, Journal of Education for Chemical Engineers, and European Journal of Engineering Education.

Among her wide-ranging work, she is most passionate about guiding academics in developing a scholarly approach to engineering education. For her work, she received several awards including the 2022 Top Research Scientist from the Academy of Science Malaysia, the 2018 IFEES Duncan Fraser Global Award for Excellence in Engineering Education, the 2017 Student Platform on Engineering Education Mentoring Award, 2015 Frank Morton IChemE Global Award for Chemical Engineering Education Excellence and 2011 IChemE Malaysia Award on Education and Training.

Starting August 2023, she is excited to begin a new phase in her career as a full Professor in the School of Engineering Education, College of Engineering, Purdue University, USA.

Prof. Syed Ahmad Helmi Syed Hassan
College of Engineering, Purdue University