Mentoring Students to Engineering Success

Jonathan Muckell was recognized with an Experiential Education Impact Award for his exemplary commitment to community engaged and work integrated learning. Sponsored by the University at Albany’s Center for Experiential Education, the award celebrates the outstanding contributions of faculty who augment student success through experiential learning both in and out of the classroom. It also reinforces UAlbany’s commitment to student success, which is a Strategic Plan priority.

Under Muckell’s mentorship, teams of engineering students worked with multiple external partners, including the New York State Industries for the Disabled (NYSID) and the local non-profit Living Resources, to develop technology to promote employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities. In this capstone design experience, there are no step-by-step directions for the students to follow; instead it relies on strong faculty mentorship to guide the students through various stages of the engineering design process. 

“Although the students were the ones steering the prototype, Professor Muckell's guidance and mentorship was paramount to the success of the product,” said Jen Sanderson of Living Resources. “In every meeting that took place with the student engineers, the support agency and Professor Muckell, he always made a great effort to emphasize to the student engineers the importance of truly listening to what the support agency needed from the product… as a result they created a model that was transferable, appropriate, and functional for my clients.”

Brian Bateman of NYSID said Muckell “and his students worked closely with NYSID staff and their agency partner to ensure that what they developed would be most useful to the people using their system.” 

Jonathan Muckell is a professor of practice in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is also the IEEE Student Branch Counselor at UAlbany and has served as the faculty mentor for the World of Engineering and Applied Sciences Living Learning Community since the 2018-19 school year.