Design thinking, human-centered design and empathy, student agency, participatory and co-design, data visualization, community-oriented engineering, AI, agent architecture, and data mining, educational technology, case-based methods, and computational social science.
Dr. Schimpf’s lab focuses on engineering and human-centered design, advancing research methods, and technology innovations to support learning in complex domains. Major research strands include: (1) analyzing how expertise develops in engineering design across the continuum from novice pre-college students to practicing engineers, (2) advancing engineering design research by integrating new theoretical or analytical frameworks (e.g., from data science or complexity science) (3) understanding how designers connect, empathize with and integrate knowledge and ideas from diverse stakeholders and (4) conducting design-based research to develop scaffolding tools for supporting the learning of complex skills like design.
Schimpf, C. T., & Swenson, J. E. S., & Burris, C. (2023), Addressing Engineers and Stakeholders Social and Institutional Power in an Human-Centered Design Capstone Course Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. https://peer.asee.org/42574
Hess, J. L., & Fila, N. D., & Schimpf, C. T., & Godwin, A., & Sanders, E. A. (2023), Board 203: A Research Study on Assessing Empathic Formation in Engineering Design Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. https://peer.asee.org/42609
Schimpf, C., & Goldstein, M. H. (2022). Large data for design research: An educational technology framework for studying design activity using a big data approach. Frontiers in Manufacturing Technology, 2, 971410.
Schimpf, C., & Castellani, B. (2022). Approachable modeling and smart methods: a new methods field of study. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 1-15.
Schimpf, C., & Beddoes, K. (2021). Designing equitable and inclusive visualizations: An underexplored facet of best practices for research and publishing. Journal of Engineering Education, 110(2), 289-293.
Rahman, M. H., Schimpf, C., Xie, C., & Sha, Z. (2019). A computer-aided design based research platform for design thinking studies. Journal of Mechanical Design, 141(12), 121102.
Schimpf, C. T., & Huang, X., & Xie, C., & Sha, Z., & Massicotte, J. E. (2019), Developing Instructional Design Agents to Support Novice and K-12 Design Education Paper presented at 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Tampa, Florida. 10.18260/1-2—32640
Xie, C., Schimpf, C., Chao, J., Nourian, S., & Massicotte, J. (2018). Learning and teaching engineering design through modeling and simulation on a CAD platform. Computer Applications in Engineering Education, 26(4), 824-840.