Abell, Annie

Biography

Annie Abell is an Associate Professor of Practice in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Ohio State University in Columbus, OH. Professor Abell earned her BS in Mechanical Engineering from Valparaiso University and her MFA in Design Research & Development from Ohio State University. She teaches capstone design courses for mechanical engineering students, a product design elective course for senior- and graduate-level engineering students of various majors, and an interdisciplinary product development course for undergraduate students participating in Ohio State’s Entrepreneurship & Innovation minor.

At OSU, Professor Abell has participated in multiple initiatives to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging within the College of Engineering. She is an inaugural member of the College of Engineering JEDI Council, which supports the College in identifying actionable inclusive excellence activities and recommends promising practices to promote and environment that is just, equitable, welcomes diversity, and is inclusive for all members of the college community. She also participated in the College’s first iteration of the Racial and Social Justice Community of Practice, in which a community of instructors work to transfer and translate knowledge of DEI, racial justice, and social justice into the discipline.

Professor Abell's current scholarship interests relate to investigating the ways in which students approach open-ended, ill-structured, or ambiguous problems. Previously, Professor Abell taught in Ohio State's Department of Design and Ohio State's First-Year Engineering Program, and has past experience working in prototyping labs. She currently serves as the Central-District representative on the IDSA Women in Design Committee, and is a general member of the American Society for Engineering Education.

Selected Publications

Dringenberg, E., Abell, A., Guanes, G. Decision Making in Engineering Capstone Design: Participants’ Reactions to a Workshop about Diverse Types of Reasoning. International Journal of Engineering Education Vol. 35, No. 6(B), pp. 1907–1917, 2019
 

Dringenberg, E., & Abell, A. (2018, June), Characterizations and Portrayals of Intuition in Decision-Making: A Systematic Review of Management Literature to Inform Engineering Education Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Salt Lake City, Utah.
 

Abell, A., & DeVore, K. (2017, June), Embracing Ambiguity: A Framework for Promoting Iterative Design Thinking Approaches in Engineering and Design Curricula Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, Ohio.

Expertise

  • Engineering Design
  • Product Design
  • Human-Centered Design
  • Design Research Methods