GEDC Chair's Message

“Building upon the experience and achievements of our previous chairs whose contribution I acknowledge and value, I would like also to share a personal perspective on our community and its role in engineering education.

As many of you, I view engineering as a responsible practice aimed at developing technologies for the greater good, a discipline where gender, race, or social status are not relevant, but rather the passion to envision a better future at both global and local levels. I will commit to strengthening the role of our community to make such a pragmatic and impactful engineering vision permeate society and specially to attract more students, especially from marginalised groups, who do not perceive this connection between engineering and societal issues. Engineering is not only about complex formulas, it is mainly about applying collective and individual intelligence and creativity to build a better future for all.

As a global community, we should embrace and value diversity, recognising differences as valuable assets that enable us to envision better solutions, and be proactive in implementing the engineering education our society needs to face multiple social, economic, environmental, cultural and geopolitical challenges.

As educational leaders, we need to promote the adoption of new pedagogical methods that keep up with current technological advances, including Artificial Intelligence, digital twins and responsible technologies. We must also promote a more interdisciplinary engineering education, which enables the development of key skills such as creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, flexibility, openess, and the ability to learn to learn. We also need to provide our students with an international and multicultural experience, so they are prepared to lead the technological (r)evolution, considering both global principles and local possibilities and constraints.

My background as a computer science and engineering professor, specialising in human-computer interaction, shapes a leadership vision characterised by empathy, respect, and a collaborative style that empowers all team members to contribute to the shared goals and, hence, I hope we can all work together to have an impact in high quality and modern engineering education.”

Prof. Dr. Paloma Diaz

Full Prof./Catedrática
Computer Science and Engineering Department

Global Engineering Deans Council Chair

Director of the Interactive Systems Research Group (DEI-Lab)

Director of the UC3M-Telefónica Chair on Women&Technology

IEEE HKN Professional member

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Avda de la Universidad 30, 28911 Leganes, Madrid (Spain)

pdp@inf.uc3m.es
dei.inf.uc3m.es
@MpalomaD