Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering

Olin’s vision is “Engineering is for everyone.” This means engineering education needs to be welcoming to, and enable the success of, people from all backgrounds. But it also means we need to make sure that engineering as a profession must serve everyone. In our ongoing commitment to the PIT-UN and its field-building principles, we are centering race, equity, and diversity in our programs, and our faculty and students are asking important questions such as “who are we designing for?” and “how might we build it?” and increasingly, “why are we building it?”, “who else is impacted?” and “should we build it at all?” As demonstrated by our student-led organization PInT, undergraduates are driving these efforts at Olin in full participation with faculty and staff. We firmly believe students, especially undergraduates, are and should be at the vanguard of defining PIT and building the field, and at Olin we will continue to amplify their voices across the PIT-UN.

Mark Somerville, Provost

Educational Offerings; Faculty and Institution Building

Olin College Public Interest Technology Clinic Summer Fellowship Program
The student-run Olin Public Interest Technology Clinic will continue to build and expand one of its signature initiatives: offering summer fellowships to 5 students for in-depth PIT work with partner organizations. Renewing our fellowship program creates new opportunities for Olin students to envision themselves on and make concrete progress toward PIT career paths. It also provides the time needed to develop our own fundraising effort for future fellow cohorts. Our deliverables include 5 new community-engaged PIT projects by our fellows with reports shared with Olin and the PIT-UN community. We will also refine and share out our materials and documentation for how to deliver a completely student-run PIT fellowship competition.

Principal Investigator

Erhardt Graeff, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Social and Computer Science

Olin College Public Interest Technology Clinic

The Olin Public Interest Technology Clinic will a) support students doing public interest technology (PIT) projects with outside stakeholders, b) offer summer fellowships for PIT work with partner organizations, and c) convene events and conversations about engineering, policy, and society, and our responsibility as engineers.

Principal Investigator

Erhardt Graeff, Assistant Professor of Social and Computer Science