Engineers and Mathematics

This book contains the stories of twenty professional engineers practising in Ireland. These are engineers’ individual stories about their background, their mathematics education experiences, their career decisions and their work in engineering practice. The engineers’ stories were compiled following interviews with a sample of professional engineers who participated in a study investigating the way mathematics is taught to prospective engineers and the way mathematics is used by practising engineers. Together the stories provide a rich insight into the role mathematics plays in the formation of engineers and in daily professional practice. This is the first time a collection of structured interview data on this topic has been generated and published. We hope it will provide rich insights for students of engineering education and professional practice as well as for engineers who wish to better understand their own career development and the stance of their peers.

Dr. Eileen Goold lecturers in the Department of Electronic Engineering at the Institute of Technology Tallaght, Dublin. Eileen has considerable experience in engineering education and practice. Dr. Frank Devitt is Head of Design Innovation at NUI Maynooth, Ireland. Frank specialises in the application of design thinking to business innovation.