Dr. Alejandro Salado

Dr. Alejandro Salado is an assistant professor of systems engineering and is passionate about bridging the gap between academia and industry by embedding real-life aspects of engineering, including ethics, and critical and systems thinking into the existing engineering education curriculum. He has worked over 10 years in the space industry and uses that experience to inform his research and teaching. He has been recognized with multiple awards during his career, including the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award, several best paper awards, and the International Fulbright Science and Technology Award. His Diggs Teaching Enhancement Project aims at enabling social justice by making ethics ubiquitous in the curriculum. Ethical dilemmas are incorporated into traditional assignments. The student does not only need to solve the problem, but also to identify and resolve the ethical conflict. In this way, students do not talk about what they would do in a hypothetical scenario, but they have to face the ethical dilemma in first person. Calculation is no longer the main objective of the engineering assignment, but a necessary vehicle to inform a personal choice. Engineering becomes subjective and diverse, enabling students to explore unprecedented solutions. Salado received his PhD in systems engineering from the Stevens Institute of Technology, a MEng in space systems engineering from TU Delft, a MS in electronics engineering and a MS in project management from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, and a BS/MS in electrical engineering from the Polytechnic University of Valencia.