Prof. Jessica Lavorata earns prestigious Engineering Unleashed Fellowship

The Carthage Engineering Department is proud to announce that Jessica Lavorata, assistant professor of engineering, has been named an Engineering Unleashed fellow for the upcoming academic year.

This competitive honor recognizes faculty across the country who are advancing innovative approaches to engineering education.

The fellowship is part of the Engineering Unleashed Faculty Development (EUFD) Workshop program, where facilitators and coaches nominate standout participants. Fellows receive a $10,000 institutional grant, funded by the Kern Family Foundation, to support projects that emphasize the entrepreneurial mindset (EM) in engineering education. The 2025 cohort includes 29 faculty members representing 23 institutions of higher education across the United States, highlighting the program’s national reach.

Prof. Lavorata earned this recognition for her work during the 2024 academic year designing and teaching the course Managing an Engineering Venture. The centerpiece of the course was the project You CAN all Engineer (ICE 2024), which introduced students to agile venture management through iterative sprints. Each sprint emphasized a dimension of the entrepreneurial mindset, guided by the KEEN Framework’s 3C’s: curiosity, connections, and creating value. Students practiced problem formulation, planning and scheduling, pre-mortems, sprint documentation, retrospectives, and daily stand-ups. These activities simulated authentic engineering practice in collaborative, value-driven, and reflective ways.

The KEEN Framework provides a shared language and working definition of entrepreneurial mindset that has been adopted by both KEEN and Engineering Unleashed communities. It outlines essential skills and mindset elements and shows a continuum from mindset to action, often involving engagement in ventures. Prof. Lavorata’s course design leverages these principles to foster students’ technical skills alongside ethical awareness, professional identity, and value creation.

Building on her ICE 2024 project, Prof. Lavorata’s fellowship will also integrate the Carthage Engineering Department’s six core values (sustainability, tenacity, ingenuity, community, curiosity, and integrity) through a “value toolbox” and new learning modules. Her work continues to strengthen Carthage’s mission to prepare students who are technically skilled and guided by character and purpose.

Through her fellowship, Prof. Lavorata joins a national cohort of educators who are advancing engineering education by embedding entrepreneurial mindset principles, the KEEN 3C’s, and value-driven practice into the classroom.

Sponsoring Department, Office, or Organization:

Engineering Department