A visitor from the US: Dr Jamie Gurganus on international collaboration for the engineers of tomorrow

How can engineers be prepared for global challenges? Dr Jamie Gurganus from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) provided answers to this question during her visit to Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg (H-BRS). Her lecture focused on international teaching and learning formats that combine technical skills with intercultural collaboration.

A key example is the ‘Global Engineers’ module, which is open to students from all degree programmes within the department. Together with fellow students from the University of Porto, the Instituto Mauá de Tecnologia in São Paulo and UMBC, they work in international teams on real-world challenges. This year’s overarching theme is ‘Poverty’: participants are developing solutions designed to help tackle poverty.

Dr Gurganus, who heads up the international network, emphasised the human-centred design approach. She explained that the projects focus not on the technology itself, but on people. The aim is to develop products and solutions that deliver tangible social benefits. At the same time, students learn to collaborate in multinational teams. This involves not only understanding cultural differences, but also dealing with seemingly everyday challenges such as time differences or varying communication habits.

Furthermore, Gurganus outlined measures through which UMBC attracts students to engineering subjects and retains them at the university in the long term. These include summer programmes for school pupils and a comprehensive induction module in the first year of study. “You learn to act, think and behave like an engineer,” explained Gurganus. The aim, he said, is to foster a sense of belonging early on and to support students in finding their academic direction.

The presentation highlighted how the long-standing partnership between UMBC and H-BRS facilitates international learning experiences and prepares students to tackle complex global challenges collaboratively and responsibly.