TITLE		Professor
AREAS		Applied mechanics and Engineering education.
DEGREES		Sc.B. 1979, Brown University; M.S. 1980, Ph.D. 1982, Harvard University.
WEBPAGES		Educational Research Engineering Education Tools from Prof. Steif's Research Web-based Engineering Statics Course
PHONE		412-268-3507
FAX		412-268-3348
EMAIL		steif@andrew.cmu.edu
ADDRESS		Carnegie Mellon University Mechanical Engineering Scaife Hall 304 5000 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Professor Steif’s activities focus strongly on engineering education. This includes:

• Research to better understand how students learn (or do not learn) basic engineering subjects.
• Development of educational materials that will help students achieve the necessary, fundamental understanding of engineering subjects.

Much of Steif’s work in engineering education currently addresses learning in Statics and mechanics of materials. Projects, which involve a number of collaborators, include: establishing a conceptual framework for Statics; devising tests to assess conceptual understanding in Statics; reorganizing instruction and developing learning modules for the Statics classroom that reflect conceptual challenges; developing interactive problem solving software for mechanics of materials; and using protocol analysis to describe the process of modeling of engineering systems generally.

In a second area of focus, Professor Steif investigates stress development and cracking during cryo-preservation of biological tissues, in collaboration with Yoed Rabin and Michael Taylor. One major impediment to cryo-preserving tissues of substantial size are the temperature gradients which accompanying cooling and thawing. These temperature gradients can give rise to unacceptably high levels of stresses that cause cracking. This project seeks to combine experimentation and modeling to capture the mechanical behavior of tissues at representative temperatures and predict how such tissues respond to realistic cryo-preservation protocols.

Recent Publications

P. S. Steif and A. Dollár, “Reinventing the Teaching of Statics,” International Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 21, pp.723-729 (2005)

A. Dollár and P. S. Steif, “Learning Modules for Statics,” International Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 22, pp.381-392 (2006)

P.S. Steif and M. A. Hansen, “New Practices for Administering and Analyzing the Results of Concept Inventories", Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 96, pp. 205-212 (2007).

Rabin, Y., Taylor, M.J., Walsh, J.R., Baicu, S., Steif, P.S., (2005) “Cryomacroscopy of vitrification, Part I: A prototype and experimental observations on the cocktails VS55 and DP6,” Cell Preservation Technology, 3(3):169-183

Steif, P.S., Palastro*, M., Wen*, C.R., Baicu, S., Taylor, M.J., Rabin, Y., (2005) “Cryomacroscopy of vitrification, Part II: Experimental observations and analysis of fracture formation in vitrified VS55 and DP6,” Cell Preservation Technology, 3(3):184-200

Rabin, Y., Steif, P.S., Hess, K.C., Jimenez-Rios, J.L., and Palastro, M.C., (2006) “Fracture formation in vitrified thin films of cryoprotectants,” Cryobiology, 53:75-95