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ASEE Lifetime Achievement Award

2023 winner:

John Heywood

John Heywood is an exemplary candidate for ASEE recognition. John has been active in engineering education for over 60 years. He was an early pioneer in applying theories of education to engineering education. His first paper on the curriculum of technician education was published in Nature in 1960. In 2019, at the age of 90, John delivered his 29th ASEE paper at the ASEE Annual Conference. John's 60 years of ASEE membership has included the publication of more than 180 articles, 10 books, numerous commissioned government studies, the founding and editorship of a major journal, and multiple awards. He has made significant contributions on the topics of examinations and assessment, curriculum theory and practice, engineering jobs analysis, and the philosophy of engineering education.

After service in the British merchant marine, in 1954 he began work at Norwood Technical College as an instructor in radio and electronics. Subsequently, he was a faculty member of Birmingham College of Advanced Technology (1961-1963); Enfield College of Technology (1963-1964); University of Lancaster (1964-1970); University of Liverpool (1970-1973), and the University of Dublin from 1973 until retirement in 1996.

When Sputniks I and II were launched in 1957, he coordinated the observations of British amateur radio astronomers which were published in Annals of the International Geophysical Year and the Proceedings of the Royal Society. For his work in making radio astronomy accessible to amateurs and the public, he was awarded the Institution Silver Medal and the Vickers Gold Medal of the Junior Institution of Engineers.

John was an early leader in advocating that engineering education could benefit from the application of the theories and methodologies studied in schools of education. He addressed assessment and teaching methodology in the engineering and technology curriculum. He studied educational change in engineering and policymaking, along with engineering codes of practice. John authored a report on the assessment of enterprise learning in higher education for the UK government. He led one of the first formal studies of what engineers actually do at work and its implications for training. He was the leader of a working group established to
develop a model curriculum for the education of mechanical engineers. He was instrumental in the development of a new style 'A' level examination in Engineering Science for the UK Joint Matriculation Board and was chairman of the working group concerned with its design, implementation, and evaluation.

In addition to 77 articles published on engineering and technology education, John was editor of the monographs The New Technician Education and Improving Teaching in Higher Education. He was the founding editor of the journal International Journal of Technology and Design Education. John's book authorship during this time included Science for Arts Students (1976), Assessment in Higher Education (1977), Analyzing Jobs (1978), A Case Study in Curriculum Assessment: GCE Engineering Science (1986), and Learning
Adaptability and Change. The Challenge for Education and Industry (1989).

John joined ASEE in 1962 and has been an ASEE member for almost half of ASEE’s 120+ year existence. John’s many contributions to ASEE and FIE proceedings, especially since the 1990s advance his early work on the application of educational methodologies to engineering education. His contributions rest on his research base on the evaluation of technological education and the development of engineering jobs analysis.

In 2005, John published Engineering Education. Research and Development in Curriculum and Instruction (Wiley, 2005). This work was influential and widely acclaimed. It received the Outstanding Research Publication Award from the American Educational Research Association (AERA). John was named an ASEE Fellow in 2007 and an IEEE Life Fellow (2016).

John has been active since 2010 in the Technological and Engineering Literacy and Philosophy of Engineering Education (TELPhE) Division. His work addresses the fundamental dimensions of technological literacy, the philosophy of engineering education, and policy implications. At the 2012 conference, John delivered a Distinguished Lecture entitled: Engineering at the Crossroads: Implications for Educational Policy Makers. In 2018 John received the TELPhE Division Meritorious Award. In 2021 he received the TELPhE
Best Paper Award.

John's recent books include “Empowering Professional Teaching in Engineering. Sustaining the Scholarship of Teaching,” Morgan Claypool (2018) and “Philosophy and Engineering Education: New Perspectives, An Introduction,” Morgan and Claypool (2022).