Diana Bairaktarova, MBA, PhD

Dr. Diana Bairaktarova is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Education, an Affiliate faculty in Mechanical Engineering, and the Director of Abilities, Creativity, and Ethics in Design [ACE(D)] Research Lab at Virginia Tech.  She teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate topics across levels of student development, from design thinking and spatial visualization, to commercializing innovation and design in engineering education and practice, including MBA, an online and executive course in the Krannert School of Business at Purdue University.

She gives seminars on the use of immersive technologies in engineering education and leads national and international workshops on pedagogies of engagement and the new renaissance artificers based on her co-edited collection "Creative Ways of Knowing in Engineering" (2017). Through real-world engineering applications, her experiential-learning research crosses disciplines, including engineering and business, psychology, and the learning sciences, as she uncovers how individual performance is influenced by abilities, personal interest, and learning environments (tangible objects, virtual, augmented, and mixed realities).

Prior to her roles in academia she worked for more than 15 years in the defense, aerospace, and semiconductor industries, holding a variety of design and manufacturing engineering positions. 

Education: B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Technical University, Sofia, Bulgaria (1993), MBA from Hamline School of Business, St. Paul, Minnesota (2009), and Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Purdue University (2013).

Quick Links:

http://aced.enge.vt.edu/

https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319493510