Department Head Dr. Maria Chrysochoou delivers a talk at the 2019 RED Consortium Meeting.

Four members of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering traveled to Alexandria, VA in November, 2019 to kick off a new department-level initiative focusing on neurodiversity. The initiative is funded through a  $2M grant from the National Science Foundation's Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) program. The project, titled "Beyond Accommodation: Leveraging Neurodiversity for Engineering Innovation," aims to make curricular and cultural changes within the department over the course of five years.

Professor and Department Head Maria Chrysochoou delivered a lightning talk at the event highlighting key features of the program. The project, she says, is aimed at improving the educational experience and learning outcomes for neurodiverse students, changing the way courses are delivered, and building an ecosystem on campus that supports neurodiverse students throughout their college years. The team believes that the project may increase the diversity, and ultimately, the creativity of the engineering workforce.

Dr. Chrysochoou, the Principal Investigator and team leader, was joined at the Consortium Meeting by co-investigators Professor Amvrossios Bagtzoglou and Associate Professor Arash Zaghi, and Project Manager Connie Syharat.

Artist Julia Reich provides visual note-taking during a talk by Dr. Arash Zaghi.