ACIE Award 2010

Simulating the World for Engineers and Scientists

Steve Levitan Electrical & Computer Engineering 218C Benedum Hall 412-648-9663 steve@ee.pitt.edu

Building mathematical and computational models is a fundamental process for scientists and engineers. Students are never explicitly taught these skills, however, despite the recent availability of the computational power needed to drive the processes. With this in mind, Steve Levitan, Engineering, is developing a course in modeling and simulation that teaches engineering and science undergraduates the necessary skills to design and analyze the complex systems that are studied in engineering and the physical sciences.

This course will use a series of programming projects to introduce students to critical concepts of modeling and provide them with a methodology for developing their own computer simulations. With the methodology, students will gain the ability to explore designs by performing “what if” experiments quickly, as well as give them a deeper understanding of the principles underlying the concepts. Levitan’s overall goal is to make computational modeling a fundamental part of the science and engineering curricula for the next generation of scientists and engineers.