February 2025 News
Academy Alum Vanessa Svihla Receives Presidential Award
Thursday, February 27, 2025
Vanessa Svihla, Indiana Academy class of 1993, received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) for her National Science Foundation CAREER (Faculty Early Career Development Program) project, “Framing and Reframing Agency in Making and Engineering” (FRAME). The PECASE is the highest honor from the United States government on outstanding scientists and engineers early in their research careers.
As part of the FRAME project, Vanessa developed the Wrong Theory Protocol, an idea generation technique where students frame a problem, generate harmful ideas, then propose beneficial ideas to fix the problem. This unique method allows students to achieve a balance between empathy and creativity to solve problems. Vanessa’s research focuses on how people learn as they design various projects and, more specifically, how they frame problems.
After graduating from the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities, Vanessa attended Smith College for her undergraduate degree, University of Texas in Austin for her master’s in science in Geology and PhD in STEM Education. She joined the University of New Mexico in 2011 as a professor of learning sciences and chemical & biological engineering. She is the fifth faculty member from UNM to receive this award.