Engineering communication with Seema Dahlheimer

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Seema Dahlheimer, director of the Engineering Communication Center, joins host Shawn Ballard for the final episode of season 1 of Engineering the Future. Dahlheimer describes her mission with the ECC to support all McKelvey people as they work on various writing and communication projects. She also shares her approach to engineering education and how she prepares her students to contribute to a better world through engineering. Plus, she share the inside scoop on what it’s like to be on “Jeopardy”!

Seema Dahlheimer: Have them think about what it means to be an engineer. Oh, it's not just solving this problem, this math problem. We're thinking about actual humans here and how we can contribute to a better world through engineering.

Shawn Ballard: Hello, and welcome to Engineering in the Future, a show from the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. I'm Shawn Ballard, science writer, engineering enthusiast, and part-time podcast host. Today, I'm here with Seema Dahlheimer, who is the Director of the Engineering Communication Center and a teaching professor in the Division of Engineering Education. Welcome, Seema!

SD: Thank you so much, Shawn, for having me on the show. 

SB: It's great to see you. So I, you know, reading over your profile, I was immediately curious. You started out as a student here at WashU in English literature, among other things. How did you move from literature and creative writing to technical writing and working for the School of Engineering?

SD: So, a lot of it is just a little bit of chance, right, which is the case with a lot of careers. So I majored in literature. I was going to be a high school teacher, and I tried that out for a little bit, and it didn't work out so well. Mostly because I was working in a toxic work environment that I, you know, just sort of didn't, I was young, and I didn't quite know how to select a job and not fall for red flags. So, in the meantime I went back to graduate school and studied more writing and more literature. Now if you have a writing degree, you end up doing a lot of writing for a lot of sort of different stuff.

So, I was working for various businesses. I was doing web copy, and I was just kind of writing a lot of different freelance stuff while I worked as a writing programs coordinator for – I don't know if you remember – Cornerstone that used to be here at WashU. It was our tutoring center. And so, I was working as an administrator, and I met the technical writing folks and, you know, it was serendipitous, and the rest is history.

SB: So you came here, you met them, and you haven't looked back. You've been here for how many years now? 

SD: I've been at the McKelvey School for 17 years.

SB: 17 years. Amazing. Okay, that, I love that tenure. So that really speaks to what a great work environment this is compared to that sort of early experience you mentioned. Tell me more about the Engineering Communication Center. What's your mission in a nutshell, and what makes it such a great place to work? 

SD: Yeah, so the Engineering Communication Center, our mission is to support all McKelvey undergraduate, graduate students and faculty, basically all McKelvey people, staff as well, in any writing or communication related thing that they're working on.

So we work with graduate students who are trying to finish up their dissertation, or we work with faculty members who are working on getting things published, undergrads who are working on resumes, cover letters, med school applications, you know, a wide variety of people who are trying to put together a really awesome conference presentation.

So, you know, our goal is to just support all McKelvey people in whatever it is that you're working on to make sure that what you're putting out into the world is really great and that the writing process that you're using is something that works for you.

SB: Okay, can you tell me a little bit more about that? So, it sounds much more personalized than I feel like, you know, a lot of people may have experience with writing classes, right, where you're in there and here's the process and just turn out a bunch of papers, but this sounds like a much more unique experience, you know, more focused on the individual and what their specific goals are. Is that, I assume that's by design, and then how does that work? How do you support that sort of in an ongoing way? That seems very, you know, intricate perhaps. 

SD: Yeah, so as a writing center, really our goal is to support the individual through their writing process. So it's not just about churning out some great piece of work. We're not editors. We don't just take an email from someone and then go through and edit it and send it back to them. It's really a one-on-one meeting where we can ask people questions about their research and better understand what they're trying to communicate and, you know, help them communicate that thing in a way that really, really works for them and showcases their own voice and fits within the, you know, the style and the publication that they're going for. Or if it's somebody applying for something, whether they're working on a teaching or research statement for a job or a med school personal statement or something like that, kind of helping them find that passion and the way that they can describe their prior experience to really, I don't know, showcase themselves in the best light.

SB: Yeah, and so as you're working on that sort of creative process with, I imagine, people who might not be as used to that, that sort of mode of learning, what are the key ways that you work to help students, faculty, everyone you work with, get to that end goal to express themselves?

SD: I think a really key part of it is just asking questions and coming to the faculty members and students we work with with curiosity. We obviously have something to contribute. We can help them polish sentences, create great transitions, all of that sort of writing related stuff, but until we, you know, ask people to articulate the importance of what they're doing or to articulate how it works, to explain something, kind of helping people exercise that muscle and also, you know, having them, having them just get a chance to geek out about their research or what they do, what they're interested in, that kind of then helps them put things on the page in a way that is going to work best for them. 

SB: Okay, I love that. What are the, I guess, maybe the hidden resources, what are the resources of the Engineering Communication Center that you wish more people knew about and were taking more advantage of?

SD: I wish people knew about all of it. You know, I meet undergraduates who are in their senior year and they're like, “oh, I didn't realize that this resource was available.” 

We certainly wish that faculty and graduate students knew that we – and a lot of faculty and graduate students do know that we're around – but more faculty and graduate students so that we can help people with their publications, with their grant applications, with, you know, the things that they turn out as part of their jobs or as part of their career that, you know, that kind of move them forward.

SB: So that all sounds like you have a lot on your plate as, of course, the director of this great center who's working with so many, you know, of our people here at McKelvey, but you also teach a variety of courses, everything from, you know, “Engineers in the Community,” which includes ethics, which includes a more socially focused aspect of engineering, on top of your technical writing work. Tell me about that and what the best thing about your job is.

SD: Oh, amazing. Okay. I could talk about this all day. So, in the Engineering Communication Center, we teach a whole suite of classes. They are related to communication a lot of the time, but also to ethics or to other professional values, leadership, conflict management. And so, you know, it's a whole suite of classes, and it's really, really exciting to just see how that's expanded over the years.

I teach “Technical Writing” and “Engineers in the Community” as two of kind of the main classes I teach. “Technical Writing” has been so great, and I've been teaching that for the whole time I've been at McKelvey. People ask, "Isn't it boring to teach the same thing over and over and over again? 

SB: That's a great question.

SD: You know, my answer is always the same. I'm not teaching the same people over and over again. So, even if the content is similar, which, by the way, it evolves over time, the students are different. And it's so lovely to hear about the things they're passionate about, the things they're excited about, to help them explain those ideas and those topics in a way that lay people can understand, or in a way that's really engaging to their audience, whoever their audience is. Maybe not just understandable, but also engaging.

And as far as “Engineers in the Community” goes, that's been a class that we have been teaching since 2016. It started out as a response to the events in Ferguson in 2014. WashU had some grant money available to create interdisciplinary classes or social justice-focused classes that had something to do with Ferguson. And so we started “Engineers in the Community” out as a Ferguson-focused class. It was entirely off-site, so all field trips.

And it's evolved over the years to be project-based, so we work with local nonprofits, and our students in groups work on a community project for the course of the whole semester. And also we do an immersion week or few days over spring break or fall break, where we go off-site and hear from speakers and go to places. And I think that that's been in recent years one of the most exciting things about my job, to see students engage with our community.

Some of them do volunteer and have a chance to do that. But with their curriculum being so difficult and as much studying as they have to do, it's really exciting to see those who maybe haven't had a chance to engage with the community quite as much get a chance to do that for the first time. And have them think about what it means to be an engineer. Oh, it's not just solving this problem, this math problem. We're thinking about actual humans here and how we can contribute to a better world through engineering.

SB: What do you see as the biggest challenges to continuing that trend of sort of socially engaged and, you know, I guess developing students, researchers, you know, these are the people who are going to be the scientists out there of the future. What do you see the biggest challenges moving forward in maintaining that level of engagement? That level of, you know, it's not just doing the science, but getting it out there.

SD: Yeah, yeah. So, I think with “Engineers in the Community,” the challenge is always that the class is different every single time because our community partners are different, the students are different, the projects are different. It is like spinning 20 different plates, which is exciting. But some of those plates break every time. Every time! You know, a community partner drops out of sight. What happened to them? They're not answering emails. What do we do now?

Actually solving those challenges and helping students kind of roll with it seems like a life skill that they often don't otherwise get a chance to practice. So I mean, I can spin that as a positive. But I really think it is.

With keeping technical writing relevant, you know, we are making changes to the curriculum, and we're always fine tuning it. I think AI is probably the biggest challenge, you know, at the moment, and right on the heels of the COVID pandemic, shutting everything down and Zoom, we did all that. And we thought, okay, the challenge of the 2020s is over. [laughs]

And then ChatGPT comes out with GPT 3.5 and 4, and suddenly we're asking ourselves, what does technical communication look like in, you know, this second quarter of the 21st century? How can we help our students engage with and evaluate these tools in a way that makes sense, rather than ignore their existence or rely on them blindly? There's some middle ground that we're still trying to figure out.

SB: Yeah, I love that mention of AI. That's something that's popped up. You know, I'm sure, of course, like a big concern of writers everywhere is just like, is this going to replace the skills that you've been teaching? And that seems like, for me, clearly no. Would you agree with that?

SD: Yeah, I would agree with that. You know, there's never going to be a replacement for human critical thinking and human expression. So we might be able to use AI tools as a support, as a research assistant, maybe as, you know, a bit of an editor.

We've already been recommending Grammarly to our students before Grammarly Pro came out to help them spellcheck and smooth out their work. And so, you know, AI tools in some way are an extension of things we've already been doing, right? I mean, Google was using AI in their search algorithms before all of this. And so this is just like a step up in some ways.

But you know, our students still need to make really good decisions when it comes to using the AI. And I mean, so do I, right? Like, I'm learning this with our students. This is new to me as well. I'm not an expert on any of it. And so it's been, it's been exciting to take this journey with my students and to kind of continue on it. But it is a little bit of a shock. It has been a little like, oh, no, what do we do?

So, we are trying to intentionally incorporate more AI tools and sort of how to use them, when to use them in our curriculum for tech writing. And each one of us is figuring that out at different levels, but we're all, we're not ignoring it.

SB: So you've been teaching in the School of Engineering for more than 15 years. What are the most important lessons that you've learned during your tenure here?

SD: Oh, this is a good question. I think I've learned lessons as an educator. And I've also learned specific content lessons from my students about science and engineering. But as an educator, I think one of the biggest things is to let go of control a little bit to allow my students to take the lead a little and really make projects their own, make the class their own. It helps them engage with why the content is important, why these skills are important. It keeps things fresh for them and for me.

But it is a balance to say, well, this is my class, but this is their class too. And finding that balance and fine tuning it, I think has been one of the sort of great lessons of being an educator for all these years.

SB: So you've learned these great important lessons, you're getting our students ready to go out into the real world as responsible, engaged members of the community. What are your proudest moments in these years of teaching or just being here at the school?

SD: Oh, there's a lot of them. So, you know, there are accomplishments I'm proud of, and there are students I'm proud of. So there are a lot of proudest moments.

I think creating “Engineers in the Community,” co-creating it with my colleagues Sandra Matteucci and then Tucker Krone came and joined us as part of the team that sort of created and evolved this class. That has been like a really great creative project that has had an impact on a lot of students.

You know, students when they do their course evaluation for that class and their reflections that they write at the end, they often call it transformative. And to have a student tell you, to have even one student tell you that something that happened in a class that you created was transformative for them is definitely a proudest moment. So, when my students shine, that's like a really lovely thing.

And then personally, like it's been exciting to get into advocacy on campus. I was president of the Association for Women Faculty this past year, which has been just a really great way to connect with colleagues from around campus and to advocate for a better WashU.

You know, I've been at WashU basically for half my life. You know, I came here as a 19 year old student, and I am way older than 38. So I have been here for more than half my life. And you know, I see WashU moving in the right direction in a lot of ways, but there are ways that I would like to help push WashU forward. And so towards equity, towards inclusiveness, you know, and so that advocacy work has been really, really great. And that's something I've sort of focused on in this last few years, certainly post pandemic. So that's definitely something that I'm proud of.

And you know, and just the community that we've built among my colleagues in the Engineering Communication Center, we share ideas, we, you know, we support each other, we hype each other up, we enjoy each other's company. Having a work environment like that makes it fun to come to work every day. And so, you know, I'm really, I can't take credit for that, you know, I can take pride in it though.

SB: Right. I love that. So it seems like you've done a lot of really great things. What is next for you? What are you most excited to tackle in the next chapter?

SD: So what's next for me is that as of the beginning of July of 2024, I am now director of the Engineering Communication Center.

SB: Congratulations!

SD: Thank you! Which is very exciting. And it is a new challenge to tackle. It's a new leadership role. And so thinking about the Engineering Communication Center as a whole and how we are going to support students and faculty and staff kind of into the next decade is a really good and sort of important question for me and for our faculty.

So yeah, taking that role on and getting the hang of the day-to-day stuff, but then also really thinking big and thinking vision and you know, thinking about what 10 years from now looks like, what 15 years from now looks like. That's I think going to be the big challenge of the next few years. 

SB: Yeah. Can you give us a little preview of that, the 10 to 15 year vision for the Communication Center?

SD: I don't have anything quite yet because, yeah, I mean, I think that that is going to be a collaborative vision that we all kind of think about. You know, it's not something I can dream alone.  And you know, I know that we are going to be engaging more with AI tools. It's been forced upon us in some ways, but this is an opportunity. I think that community engagement and social engagement and having socially conscious students is going to be a really important thing moving forward. And then also really focusing on equity and, you know, not just equity, but belonging and inclusion for our students of color, for our low-income students, for any minoritized populations of students and faculty who come to us. Thinking about like, not just how do we support people so that they can, you know, climb up to be at equal footing, but how do we make this an environment that is really inclusive, that everybody feels like they belong.

And I think that it's an ongoing question. It's been a question, but it's something we're going to continue to grapple with. 

SB: Seema, a thing people may not know about you is that you are a not just one, but two-time game show host, competitor? Is that correct?

SD: Competitor.

SB: Competitor. Yes. So, you've been on “Jeopardy” and …

SD: “The Chase.” 

SB: “The Chase.” I'm not familiar with that one.

SD: It's another trivia game show.

SB: Okay. So big time trivia game shows. What drew you or attracted you to be a competitor on a game show? Which seems a little terrifying to me. Super impressed that you're doing this though!

SD: So, I've always wanted to be on “Jeopardy.” Like that was, that was the dream. That was something I thought would be just absolutely amazing. I used to watch “Jeopardy” as a kid with my mom and, you know, it used to come on at 3 30 p.m. in St. Louis. So it was hard to catch it. But during the summers and stuff like that, I, you know, I would watch “Jeopardy,” and I got good at answering lots of questions. I have good recall, and that's pretty important. The speed of recall, I think, even more so than what you know. Yeah, that's how quickly you can come up with stuff. 

And so, once they created an online test to try out, I tried out every year when the online test came around and it took forever. But I got on in 2019. And I got to fly out to California, and my family was in the audience. It was so fun.

I met so many awesome people through “Jeopardy,” the competitors and other contestants on my tape day. But then also there's a whole social media community out there of like trivia people. And it's been so fun to sort of make new friends and, you know, I can go to any city now and I've got friends in any city, and it's really fun. 

So yeah, being on “Jeopardy” was a dream, and I did it before I turned 40 just barely.

And then, and then when I saw the sort of the casting call come through on social media for “The Chase,” I thought, what is this show? Let me watch it. So I picked it up on I think Hulu or something like that and watched it. And I thought, oh, this is really fun. It's sort of, you know, it's a trivia game show. So it's sort of like “Jeopardy” in some ways. But there was a bit of a faster pace. And I kind of liked that. I thought, oh, this would be a fun challenge. And so I tried out for that and ended up again going out to California and competing on that.

I also think, and this is, you know, helpful for my students, but also for my children. You can be proud of something without having won. Right? I want to show people, like, especially the young people in my life that like, I can be insanely proud of having done something. And I don't have to win it for it to be a point of pride. It's the doing of it that's important. 

And so, you know, taking risks, doing things that are hard, stumbling at them, and still being proud of myself. Like this isn't all about winning, although it would have been nice to win some money. But maybe the third time's the charm.

SB: Yeah, I hope so. So, with that, you know, you may be on another game show coming up. Is there a favorite game show of yours? Or do you have your sights on this third time's the charm?

SD: So, I have been trying out for stuff. And, you know, and this year I didn't do, I ended up kind of getting busy, and I didn't try out for all the shows that came around. I got to the final round with a couple of them, but then I didn't get cast for them.

The one that I didn't try out for that I'm kicking myself about, and I'll do it next year, maybe, is “Trivial Pursuit.” And I don't know much about the format of the show. And so I hadn't tried out for it. But at the end of all of that, once they had cast it, they said who the host was going to be. And I was like, oh, man, I should have tried out.

So, it's LeVar Burton.

SB: Oh my god!

SD: Who played Jordy LeForge in “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” He was the host of “Reading Rainbow.” He was in “Roots.” He's been in all this stuff. And, you know, “Star Trek” is definitely the reason I, you know, I'm a huge fan of his. And so I think, you know, it would be very cool to meet him as a host. I've never really met a “Star Trek” person. So, one of these days. So, the show itself, I'm sure, is great. But it's the host that would have been the exciting one for that. But, you know, I've tried out for some other ones. I tried out for one that Shaquille O'Neal is hosting, which my kids would have been really excited about, but I didn't get cast. It's okay.

SB: No, I love this. So, I'm going to make a note to myself here. Like, try out for “Trivial Pursuit” show so that I can meet LeVar Burton.

SD: That's exactly it, yeah.

SB: I'm a “Reading Rainbow” kid.

SD: I just want my picture with LeVar Burton. “Trivial Pursuit” for the host. But there are other formats that are really cool that would be, you know, that would be fun to be on. “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” of course, would be amazing because of the potential for high earnings.

SB: Yeah.

SD: But so far, I have not fared well with the winning money on game shows.

SB: Next time. When you're with LeVar.

SD: Yeah, that'd be amazing.

SB: Okay. In addition to game shows, which seems like that, obviously, like you have a lot invested in that. But are there other media things that you might want to recommend to us? So anything that you've been enjoying lately, books, movies, TV, what have you got for us? What should we be watching?

SD: Sure. So I love reading. And I love finding new little series on Netflix and that sort of stuff. In April of this year, I fell down the rabbit hole and read the entire Three Body Problem trilogy, which is… it took forever. It's a long, long series of books. But once I was in it, like I just had to keep going. And so those were amazing. 

And then I watched the series, which is I believe on HBO, it's from the creators of “Game of Thrones.” And the series is quite different from the books. But I think they did a really good job adapting sort of the spirit of it. And so I would definitely recommend, I would recommend the book trilogy and the show. But personally, I always recommend them in that order. Read the books first. Because I don't know, that's just how I do it.

But especially if you're a reader, but you're having trouble getting into them, you know, they're books that are Chinese books that are in translation. And you know, it's just sort of a different narrative style. It's culturally different. So if you're having trouble getting into the books, maybe watch the series first. And then as you read the books, you can compare. 

SB: I love that. Okay. Well, that is all we have for you today. Seema, thank you so much for coming to the show. This has been delightful. I wish you the best of luck, both in your next endeavors as director of the Communication Center and in your next game show appearance.

SD: Thank you so much, Shawn. I really appreciate it.

[Music]

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