Leslie Potter, senior lecturer in industrial and manufacturing systems engineering, is part of a project that received an award from the Presidential Initiative for Interdisciplinary Research program created by President Steven Leath.
The project, called “The Language of Writing in STEM Disciplines”, was awarded a proof-of-concept grant for up to $100,000 for one year. Carol A. Chapelle from applied linguistics is the principal investigator on the project. The vision is to create a national center of scholarship for the study of language in academic and professional writing in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. The center will conduct research on linguistic practices in STEM disciplines, to improve pedagogy of writing in STEM disciplines, and to develop and apply computational methods for analysis and assessment of discipline-specific writing.
The Presidential Initiative for Interdisciplinary Research program was created to support research efforts with the possibility of leading to major advances, discoveries and technologies.