David Knight

About

David B. Knight currently serves as the interim dean for the College of Engineering and is a professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. His educational background includes a Ph.D. in Higher Education from Pennsylvania State University, obtained in 2012, a Master’s degree in Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia in 2009, and a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia in 2006. His research focuses on promoting a systems view of engineering education, with an emphasis on improving the efficiency, effectiveness, and inclusiveness of the field. Knight established the Virginia Tech Data Enlightened Educational Practice (DEEP) Lab, which aims to be a leading research entity in engineering education. His macro-scale research leverages large-scale institutional, state, and national data sets, and considers the intersection between policy and organizational contexts. He currently serves as the co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Engineering Education.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Social Science
• Engineering
• Psychology
• Engineering ethics
• Engineering management
• Medical education
• Medicine

Selected publications

• U.S. postdoctoral careers in life sciences, physical sciences and engineering: Government, industry, and academia

  PLoS ONE · 2022 · 44 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Discussions about science and engineering postdoctoral researchers focus almost exclusively on academic postdocs and their chances of eventually securing tenure-track faculty positions. Further, biological sciences dominate policy research and published advice for new PhDs regarding postdoctoral employment. Our analysis uses the Survey of Earned Doctorates and Survey of Doctorate Recipients to understand employment implications for physical sciences and engineering (PSE) and life sciences (LS) g…

  DOI

• Advancing Sustainable Development: Emerging Factors and Futures for the Engineering Field

  Sustainability · 2023 · 24 citations

  This study set out to identify emerging trends in advancing engineering for sustainable development, supporting the engineering workforce to address wicked problems, and strengthening pathways between engineering education, industry, and policy. The following question guided this work: What are the emerging factors impacting the future of global sustainability efforts within engineering, and how can these be amplified to increase the impact of engineering for sustainable development? Using an ad…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Outcome Expectations and Environmental Factors Associated with Engineering College-Going: A Case Study

  Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER) · 2020 · 20 citations

  Family, school, and community contexts each link to secondary school enrollment, yet these factors have been comparatively examined only in limited ways. A holistic examination of contextual factors will be particularly important for engineering where college enrollment patterns vary by demographics. To begin explaining patterns of engineering college-going at different high schools across the Commonwealth of Virginia, we answered the following research questions: Within a single school system a…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Transformation to Outcomes Based Education

  Lecture notes in networks and systems · 2024-11-13 · 3 citations

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• Career Paths of Doctoral Recipients in Engineering and Computer Science: Trends by Sex, Race, Citizenship, and Discipline with an Emphasis on Biomedical Engineering

  Biomedical Engineering Education · 2024-04-26 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract We summarize national-scale data for Ph.D. earners in engineering or computer science from 2015 to 2019 whose post-graduate school employment is known, highlighting outcomes for biological/biomedical/biosystems engineering students. We use NSF’s Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED), which has collected information from Ph.D. recipients in the USA since 1957. The data are collected at the time of degree completion and constitute a greater than 90% response rate. Compared to all engineering…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Gatekeepers to Broadening Participation in Engineering: Investigating variation across high schools comparing who could go versus who does go into engineering

  NSF · $590k · 2017–2021

• Research: Collaborative Research: Non-Academic Career Paths of Master’s and PhD Engineers

  NSF · $191k · 2021–2026

• Strengthening the STEM Pipeline for Elementary School African Americans, Hispanics, and Girls by Scaling Up Summer Engineering Experiences

  NSF · $646k · 2016–2020

Frequent coauthors

• Brian Novoselich

  United States Military Academy

  856 shared

• Walter Lee

  Purdue University System

  334 shared

• Maura Borrego

  140 shared

• Dustin Grote

  Clemson University

  118 shared

• Allison Godwin

  Purdue University West Lafayette

  78 shared

• Dina Verdín

  Arizona State University

  75 shared

• Andrea Ogilvie

  Mitchell Institute

  75 shared

• Maya Denton

  University of Oklahoma

  73 shared

Labs

• Engineering EducationPI

Education

• PhD, Higher Education

  Pennsylvania State University

  2012

• MS, Environmental Sciences

  University of Virginia

  2009

• MUEP, Urban & Environmental Planning

  University of Virginia

  2009

• BS, Environmental Sciences

  University of Virginia

  2006

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• Vinod Lohanih-19