About

Elizabeth M. Fisher is an Associate Professor Emerita at the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University. She graduated summa cum laude in physics and served as president of the Yale chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society in her senior year. Her early professional experience includes work at the Thermal Sciences Branch of the Solar Energy Research Institute in Golden, Colorado. In 1991, she joined the faculty at Cornell and was named to a five-year Clare Boothe Luce Professorship. Her research focuses on using bench-scale experiments and numerical simulations to investigate combustion chemistry, flow, and heat transfer processes in biomass energy systems and other practical systems. Her work aims to understand chemical kinetic mechanisms related to the formation of desired products and pollutants, with applications including biomass combustion in cookstoves, biomass pyrolysis for fuels and biochar, flame inhibition, combustion of practical liquid fuels such as biodiesel and jet fuel, oxycombustion for carbon sequestration, and incineration of hazardous wastes and chemical warfare agents. Professor Fisher has taught courses such as Thermodynamics, Combustion Engines and Fuel Cells, Aerospace Propulsion, and Fluids/Heat Transfer Laboratory, emphasizing active and problem-based learning. She has received numerous awards for her teaching, including the ASEE St. Lawrence Section Outstanding Teacher Award in 2017, the Teetor Award from the Society of Automotive Engineers in 1995, and the Dennis G. Shepherd Memorial Teaching Prize in 1997. She is a Fellow of the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future and has served as Associate Editor of Energy and Fuels. Her professional memberships include the Combustion Institute, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the American Society of Engineering Education.

Research topics

• Chemistry
• Environmental science
• Materials science
• Waste management
• Psychology

Selected publications

• What Sticks When the Dust Settles: Evaluating the Retention of Concepts and Thought Processes with Think-aloud Interviews

  2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings · 2024-02-20 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  WIP: What sticks when the dust settles: evaluating the retention of concepts and thought processes with think-aloud interviewsA foundational goal of deliberately designed educational experiences is for learners to acquire and to retain knowledge and thinking skills.Common modes of assessment such as exams administered during the semester may measure students' short-term achievement of learning objectives.However, they do not identify the underlying knowledge gaps, misconceptions, or thought processes responsible for students' errors.In addition, such tests do not yield information on students' retention of skills beyond the conclusion of the course.Such limitations make it difficult to optimize learning activities for long-term retention of concepts and skills that are crucial to problem solving activities in engineering courses.Think-aloud interviews provide rich qualitative data about students' thought processes in verbal form that are not available from multiple-choice or free-response type of assessments.In this work-in-progress paper we present a set of think-aloud interviews with senior-level mechanical engineering students as they take a concept inventory assessment on introductory fluid mechanics and mechanics of engineering materials.Participants took these two courses in their junior year, at the end of which they took the same concept inventory tests, but not in a think-aloud format.We explain how our interview data is used to identify students' knowledge gaps or misconceptions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• How To Think About Fluids In and Out of Classrooms: Developing Interactive Strategies for Learning Fluid Mechanics Online

  2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings · 2024-02-20

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  In this paper we report on the development of strategies used in an introductory fluid mechanics course that transitioned from a fully in-person mode of delivery to a hybrid setting.We describe two sets of instructional changes we used to support students' learning in the hybrid context: first, Matlab live script documents and second, "scavenger hunt" missions of finding, demonstrating, or building fluid mechanical systems in everyday life.We employ two different instruments to track students' experiences in this course.First, we compare students' performance in a fluid mechanics concept inventory assessment that they take at the end of each semester.In addition, we also adopt a set of items from the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) to measure the impacts of these changes on students' motivations and attitudes.We reflect on the implications of this transition process and provide an outline of the future developments of this work.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Student Motivation and Engagement Across Time and Context Through the COVID-19 Pandemic

  2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings · 2024-02-20 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  Motivation is a multi-faceted construct encompassing orientation towards certain types of goals, the value and expectation of achieving those goals, and attributional beliefs.Our unique dataset tracks cohorts of mechanical engineering students through time and across multiple courses, allowing us to study context-dependent variables across time.We measured intrinsic goal orientation and extrinsic goal orientation in two cohorts of mechanical engineering students at the beginning and end of the Fall 2019 and Fall 2020 terms.Though our original study was designed to evaluate instructional interventions in a "difference-of-differences" design, our cohorts were significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.Based on the ongoing stress of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as widespread dissatisfaction with remote learning, we expected students to be less motivated overall in Fall 2020 compared to Fall 2019, and for motivation to erode more rapidly over the semester.Although intrinsic motivation was indeed lower in Fall 2020 compared with Fall 2019, the decrease in motivation over the course of the semester was the same.Furthermore, the availability of recorded lecture videos and class content may have mitigated against an expected drop in level of engagement for some students.Average student engagement, as measured by responses to in-class polling exercises remained constant between Fall 2019 and Fall 2020, and it appears that more students were able to maintain a 100% participation rate in the remote context, though there is significant variation in engagement within the class.We seek input from the engineering education research community on this work-in-progress study.We especially invite a discussion about how to make sense of survey results in dramatically different teaching contexts.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Steady-state behavior of a biomass plancha-type cookstove: Experimental and 3D numerical study

  Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments · 2023-03-31 · 5 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Valveless microliter combustion for densely packed arrays of powerful soft actuators

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2021-09-23 · 41 citations

  articleOpen access

  Existing tactile stimulation technologies powered by small actuators offer low-resolution stimuli compared to the enormous mechanoreceptor density of human skin. Arrays of soft pneumatic actuators initially show promise as small-resolution (1- to 3-mm diameter), highly conformable tactile display strategies yet ultimately fail because of their need for valves bulkier than the actuators themselves. In this paper, we demonstrate an array of individually addressable, soft fluidic actuators that operate without electromechanical valves. We achieve this by using microscale combustion and localized thermal flame quenching. Precisely, liquid metal electrodes produce sparks to ignite fuel lean methane-oxygen mixtures in a 5-mm diameter, 2-mm tall silicone cylinder. The exothermic reaction quickly pressurizes the cylinder, displacing a silicone membrane up to 6 mm in under 1 ms. This device has an estimated free-inflation instantaneous stroke power of 3 W. The maximum reported operational frequency of these cylinders is 1.2 kHz with average displacements of ∼100 µm. We demonstrate that, at these small scales, the wall-quenching flame behavior also allows operation of a 3 × 3 array of 3-mm diameter cylinders with 4-mm pitch. Though we primarily present our device as a tactile display technology, it is a platform microactuator technology with application beyond this one.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Multiple-choice Learning Assessments for Intermediate Mechanical Engineering Courses: Insights from Think-aloud Interviews

  2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings · 2020-09-07 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Concept inventories (CIs)-validated tests based on carefully-articulated models of conceptual knowledge in a field-have been developed for many introductory STEM courses such as Physics / Mechanics, Statics, Chemistry, and Electricity and Magnetism. CIs can be powerful research tools for measuring students' progression towards expert-level thinking, but can be difficult to develop for intermediate courses where domain-specific knowledge, problem-solving strategies, and technical fluency are important learning goals alongside conceptual frameworks. For such intermediate courses, it is still valuable to develop high-quality, multiple-choice tests to measure students' progress towards course learning objectives or to assess the efficacy of instructional interventions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Motivation, Self-efficacy, and Student Engagement in Intermediate Mechanical Engineering Courses

  2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings · 2020-09-08 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Motivation is a critical component of student learning.Student motivation in the context of academic performance is composed of and influenced by several constructs such as intrinsic goals (learning for learning's sake), extrinsic goals (performance for the sake of a grade, career advancement, or other external validation), self-efficacy (confidence in one's ability to succeed with sufficient work), and value (belief that class activities are worthwhile).Much of the literature on motivation in engineering has focused on persistence beyond introductory courses, career choice, and differences between engineering majors.However, our interviews with mechanical engineering students have revealed that students may form motivational beliefs and identities related to a specific subfield within their major (e.g."I see myself as a mechatronics person, but not a fluids person") and therefore we expect to find differences in responses between course contexts for the same student.We measured motivation and attitudes towards learning in a cohort of students simultaneously enrolled in three upper-division mechanical engineering courses.We adapted portions of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) into two surveys: an online survey asking students to reflect on all of their mechanical engineering courses ("cohort context"), and a paper survey delivered during class in each of the three courses ("course context").The cohort-context survey included questions related to intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation.The course-context surveys included questions related to intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, study habits, task value, and peer learning.We also recorded measures of student engagement with course content including lecture attendance (proxied by a classroom polling system) and engagement with an online course discussion board.Our unique study design allows us to examine the relationships between motivation, self-efficacy, engagement, and academic performance by comparing the same individual in different contexts rather than relying on group statistics.Extrinsic motivation was strongly correlated between courses.Intrinsic motivation, by contrast, was only weakly to moderately correlated between courses.Task value was not correlated between courses despite similar course formats and alignment with major requirements.Most surprisingly, self-efficacy was not correlated between courses, despite strong correlation of grades and exam scores.This curriculum-level lens provides valuable insights to guide the design of broad department-level educational initiatives.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Natural-draft flow and heat transfer in a plancha-type biomass cookstove

  Renewable Energy · 2019-07-04 · 32 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Structural Rights and Incorporation

  Faculty publications · 2019-02-20

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Under the selective incorporation doctrine, provisions in the Bill of Rights are applied against the states if they are fundamental to the American scheme of ordered liberty or deeply rooted in this nation’s history. By focusing solely on the importance of rights, this doctrine fails to account for the effect of incorporating a right on the states. This Article challenges this approach. It identifies a category of rights whose incorporation most deeply intrudes on state sovereignty. These rights do not simply create individual entitlements; they also have structural features by dictating which government institutions may exercise which government powers. These “structural rights” comprise the Fifth Amendment right to a grand jury, the Sixth Amendment right to a criminal jury, and the Seventh Amendment right to a civil jury. The Article argues that these rights should not be incorporated because the prerogative to allocate government powers is one of the core powers of state sovereignty, and the Fourteenth Amendment does not purport to strip the states of that power. In addition to protecting the state power to arrange government, adopting a theory against incorporating structural rights would explain the Court’s refusal to incorporate the grand jury and civil jury rights, as well as doctrinal anomalies surrounding incorporation of the criminal jury right. Adopting the theory against incorporating structural rights would have several implications. The most significant is that it would result in the deincorporation of the Sixth Amendment right to a criminal jury. The consequence of this deincorporation is not only that the U.S. Constitution would not oblige states to provide juries in criminal cases but also that the doctrine announced in Apprendi v. New Jersey, which prohibits sentencing schemes that allowed judges to make factual findings altering the range of punishment, would no longer apply against the states.

  Publisher

• Jill L. Snodgrass. <i>Women Leaving Prison: Justice-Seeking Spiritual Support for Female Returning Citizens</i>

  Toronto Journal of Theology · 2019-11-01 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  "Jill L. Snodgrass. Women Leaving Prison: Justice-Seeking Spiritual Support for Female Returning Citizens." Toronto Journal of Theology, 35(2), pp. 220–221

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Hadas Ritz

  Cornell University

  31 shared

• Matthew Ford

  University of Washington

  31 shared

• Soheil Fatehiboroujeni

  Cornell University

  29 shared

• Johannes Lehmann

  13 shared

• F. C. Gouldin

  13 shared

• Pamela Hallock

  University of South Florida St. Petersburg

  11 shared

• Catherine P. Koshland

  University of California, Berkeley

  8 shared

• Lei Deng

  8 shared

Education

• PhD, Engineering Science: Mechanical Engineering

  University of California Berkeley

  1990

• M.S., Engineering Science: Mechanical Engineering

  University of California Berkeley

  1987

• BS, Physics

  Yale University

  1982

Awards & honors

• James and Mary Tien Teaching Award, College of Engineering,…
• ASME St. Lawrence Section Outstanding Teaching Award, Americ…
• John Swanson '61 ME Teaching Award, in honor of his mother,…
• McManus Faculty Fellowship 2006
• Dennis G. Shepherd Memorial Teaching Prize, Sibley School of…