Dr. Nidaa Makki is an Associate Professor in the LeBron James Family Foundation College of Education at The University of Akron, in the department in Curricular and Instructional Studies. Her work focuses on STEM curriculum integration and science inquiry practices in middle and high school. She is a co-PI on an NSF funded project to investigate the impact of integrating engineering on middle school students' interest and engagement in STEM. She has also received funding to conduct teacher

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... ssional development in the areas of engineering education, problem based learning and inquiry instruction. Dr. Nicholas G. Garafolo, University of Akron Dr. Nicholas G. Garafolo is a researcher in the broad area of thermo-fluids and aerospace, with an emphasis in advanced aerospace seals, near-hermetic fluid flows, and turbomachinery modal analysis. Dr. Garafolo currently holds a position as Assistant Professor at The University of Akron. Supporting the dissemination of his research activities, Dr. Garafolo has six journal manuscripts, over 30 conference papers and presentations, and $868,647 of total project funding. Prior to his appointment, Dr. Garafolo worked as a federal contractor, under the umbrella of a multi-million dollar contract, in space flight hardware research and development to NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Garafolo was instrumental in developing a synergistic approach in the research and component modeling of elastomeric space seals for manned spaceflight; an asset to NASA and the development of advanced aerospace seals for the next generation of manned spacecraft. The unique problem necessitated a grasp of both fluid dynamics and material science, as well as experimental and computational analysis. As a DAGSI/Air Force Research Laboratory Ohio Student-Faculty Fellow, Dr. Garafolo gained experimental knowledge in structural dynamics of turbomachinery. In particular, his research on engine order excitation yielded insight into generating high cycle fatigue of turbomachinery using acoustic excitation.