Professor John Heywood (93), who was Professor and Chair of Teacher Education in the School of Education at Trinity College Dublin from 1977 to 1996, has become the first non-US national to be honoured with the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Lifetime Achievement Award. The ASEE is in its 130th year and to date only 10 of these awards have been presented.
Image: Professor John Heywood receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award in Washington from President of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), Professor Jenna P. Carpenter.
Professor Heywood has authored or co-authored 200 publications including twenty books.
His latest book on the history of research in engineering education and public policy will be published by Oxford University Press later this year.
He edited the first handbook for optical and radio observers of artificial earth satellites. This began his lifelong interest in the public understanding of engineering (technological and engineering literacy). He directed a pioneering study of what engineers do at work. In 2006 he was recognised by the American Educational Research Association with the annual award for the best published research on the professions (Engineering Education: Research and Development in Curriculum and Instruction).
Professor Heywood has lived in Bray for almost 50 years. He was Chairman of the Board of Management of St Fergal's NS in Bray and in 2015 led the process of amalgamating the junior and senior schools into one.
During the 1980's and 90's he directed the Christian Brother's school technology projects in Ireland. The Christian Brothers established the Marino Curriculum Service with a view to undertaking research and development in new curriculum studies, especially technology which he directed and which led Trinity to establish a national programme of in service education for teachers giving teachers working in rural areas the opportunity to study for diplomas and masters degrees locally.
Prof Heywood's papers relating to the Committee on the form and Function of the Intermediate certificate, the Curriculum and Examinations Board, and teacher education, have been deposited together with a Commentary in the archive of Trinity Library.
He is one of a small group of people in the US and UK who pioneered research into engineering education both in K-12 schools and higher education. In the US it is now a very substantial activity.
His special interests are in the relationship between theory and practice in the professions (particularly in engineering, teaching and management), the public understanding of engineering and technology, and the philosophy and history of engineering education.
The ASEE Lifetime Achievement Award recognises individuals who have retired or are near the end of their careers for sustained contributions to education in the fields of engineering and/or engineering technology. The contributions may be in teaching, education, research, administration, or educational programmes, professional service, or any combination thereof. The award was established by the efforts of the Lifetime Achievement Award Steering Committee created for the award by the contributions of ASEE Life members and like-minded, not-yet Member Fellows.
Professor Heywood joined ASEE in 1962. He is is both a Life Member and Fellow.
In 2016 he was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the world’s largest and most prestigious professional association for the advancement of technology for humanity.
Professor Heywood received the honour in recognition of “contributions to engineering education research and the development of engineering education as a field of scientific inquiry.”
IEEE Fellowship is conferred on individuals with an outstanding record of accomplishment in an IEEE field of interest. It is a rare honour with only one-tenth of one percent of the organisation's total voting membership receiving the accolade annually.