engineering

Sheri D. Sheppard

Sheri D. Sheppard is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Sheri D. Sheppard rather than just read about it. In short: Sheri D. Sheppard (born 1956) is the Burton J. and Deedee McMurtry University Fellow in Undergraduate Education; Associate Vice Provost of Graduate Education; and Associate Chair for Undergraduate Curriculum, Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University.

Key takeaways

Sheri D. Sheppard belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Sheri D. Sheppard to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Sheri D. Sheppard from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Sheri D. Sheppard (born 1956) is the Burton J. and Deedee McMurtry University Fellow in Undergraduate Education; Associate Vice Provost of Graduate Education; and Associate Chair for Undergraduate Curriculum, Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University. She focuses her teaching on engineering design for undergraduate and graduate students. In November 2014, the Carnegie Foundation bestowed on her the U.S. Professor of the Year award.

Early life and education Sheppard graduated from William Horlick High School in Racine, Wisconsin in 1974 and aimed to study law. As she explained, "...my father said that he would fund law school if I majored in engineering." She earned a B.S. in Engineering Mechanics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1978, and by that time she had become passionate about engineering. She went to the University of Michigan–Dearborn, and earned an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 1980 and earned her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor in 1985.

Career Sheppard has held positions in Detroit, working at Chrysler Corporation and also at Ford Motor Company's Scientific Research Lab. She started at Stanford as an assistant professor on the Mechanical Engineering faculty in 1986. Sheppard was promoted to associate professor in 1993, and achieved the rank of professor in 2005. Sheppard was chair of Stanford's Faculty Senate from 2006 to 2007. Between 1999 and 2008, she also served as Senior Scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, where she had responsibility for the Preparations for the Professions Program (PPP) engineering study and report.

Research Sheppard has studied fatigue and fracture of structural components, producing technical papers, reports, and textbooks on "weld fatigue and impact failures, fracture mechanics and applied finite element analysis." She has also led studies of engineering education, including the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching: Educating Engineers: Designing for the Future of the Field. Sheppard has been principal investigator on multiple National Science Foundation grants focused on engineer educational methods, including Synthesis Coalition (1986–1995), founding the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education (2003–2009) and the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (2011–2016).

Honors In 2004, the American Society for Engineering Education presented Sheppard with the Chester F. Carlson Award, sponsored by Xerox, as an "innovator in engineering education who, by motivation and ability to extend beyond the accepted tradition, has made a significant contribution to the profession." Stanford University honored Sheppard in 2010 with the Walter J. Gores Award, "the University's highest award for excellence in teaching...the Gores Award celebrates achievement in educational activities that include lecturing, tutoring, advising, and discussion leading". In 2012 Sheppard received the Ralph Coats Roe Award from the American Society for Engineering Education, for "notable professional contributions". Sheppard received Stanford's 2014 President's Award for Excellence Through Diversity, "for serving as a trailblazing role model for women in engineering". The Carnegie Foundation named Sheppard 2014 U.S. Professor of the Year, "for her innovative approach to teaching undergraduate students in a hands-on, problem-solving way that transforms large classes into small group learning laboratories". She is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering and the American Society for Engineering Education.

References

External links Profiles.stanford.edu U.S. Professor of the Year (video, 3:10 minutes) EngineerGirl profile - Sheri Sheppard

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Sheri D. Sheppard

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Sheri D. Sheppard claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Sheri D. Sheppard before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Sheri D. Sheppard ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Sheri D. Sheppard

In research: Sheri D. Sheppard appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Sheri D. Sheppard in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Sheri D. Sheppard is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1956 births, 21st-century American mechanical engineers, 21st-century American women engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Sheri D. Sheppard outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Sheri D. Sheppard in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Sheri D. Sheppard means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Sheri D. Sheppard out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sheri D. Sheppard in simple terms?

Why does Sheri D. Sheppard matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Sheri D. Sheppard?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Sheri D. Sheppard.