Committees and leadership.

An initiative of the School of Engineering, active between June 2024 and the second semester of 2026, to integrate generative AI into engineering courses. Its own page tells my role, its results and its limits.

The initiative in full →

As Thematic Area Leader for Food Engineering at the joint XXXI Inter-American and XXXIII Colombian Congress of Chemical Engineering held in Cartagena de Indias, I was entrusted with shaping the scientific program for this key area.

This leadership role involved curating technical sessions, guiding discussions on the latest advancements, and fostering collaboration among professionals and academics from across the Americas.

The Research and Doctorate Committee advises the Council of the School of Engineering on the decisions that promote and strengthen research in the School.

Our responsibilities include designing strategies to increase research activity, ensuring its quality and impact, suggesting methods for measuring research output, and advising the Dean on resource allocation. We also contribute to the efficient management of research infrastructure and propose strategies for disseminating research findings.

As the representative of my department, I kept in touch with its director and professors and took their views to the committee's discussions.

In October 2024 the Universidad de los Andes published its Guidelines for the use of generative artificial intelligence, with recommendations for students, professors, researchers and staff, organized by who uses the tools and for what. The University presents them as a framework that will be updated as the technology changes.

On behalf of the School of Engineering, with Dean Rubby Casallas and Professor Juan Carlos Cruz, I took part in the whole discussion and wrote the first version of the section on the use of generative AI in research. The closing note of the document acknowledges the significant contributions of the three of us to its content.

The professors of the School elect their representative to its Council, which has a voice and a vote in the Council's decisions. My role was to carry the professors' voice to the Council.

In practice that meant listening: in several meetings I took the professors' questions to the Council and to the University's leadership, and brought the answers back to them.

I served on the organizing committee of the first edition of the Nanotech LATAM Forum, held by the School of Engineering in the first semester of 2023.

GDPP (Grupo de Diseño de Productos y Procesos) is the Department of Chemical and Food Engineering's A1-ranked research group, accredited by the Colombian Ministry of Science. I was appointed as its director for the 2020-2023 term.

My responsibilities included ensuring compliance with the group's strategic objectives, preparing annual performance reports, and promoting interdisciplinary research by managing project proposals for internal and external funding calls.

I also proposed alliances with other research groups and with companies, and kept the group's records of researchers and activities up to date in the national and institutional databases.

From 2019 to 2021, I actively participated in the curriculum reform for the Chemical Engineering program and its integration with the new Food Engineering program. My role focused on designing and framing several project-oriented courses within a new pedagogical model that articulates projects, workshops, and lectures.

A key contribution was incorporating the concept of Integrated Product and Process Design (DIPP) by creating a cohesive structure that linked these new project courses with four other core courses in the program, ensuring a more holistic and applied learning experience for students.

As the faculty advisor for the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Student Chapter, my primary role was to provide guidance and support, with a strong emphasis on fostering academic excellence and research initiatives.

To support student-led projects for competitions like Chem-E-Car, I established the AIChE Research Seedbed. This initiative provided students with the necessary resources, lab space, and a formal structure to conduct research, leading to top rankings in regional competitions for their car design, research paper, and poster.

In collaboration with departmental colleagues, I also encouraged and supported the students in creating the first-ever Transport Phenomena Olympics in 2019. The event, modeled after the long-running Thermodynamics Olympics, was designed to strengthen fundamental knowledge in a competitive and engaging format. While plans to expand it to other universities were paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it marked a significant student-led academic achievement.

Appointed by the Dean of Engineering, this committee was composed of professors from various departments, the Teaching Support Unit, the Academic Vice-Dean, and the Academic Coordinator, who served as Secretary. The committee's objective was to define the characteristics of different project types that could be developed within the School's educational spaces as part of a new curricular reform framework.

Our primary task involved collaborative discussions on topics related to the competencies, resources, organization, and evaluation of these project-based courses. The team's insights were gathered in documents such as matrices, tables, and shared files, which were analyzed to produce a consolidated report. This final deliverable, titled 'Projects in the Engineering Curriculum Reform,' was first drafted by the Academic Vice-Dean in July 2020.

Our analysis revealed that while project-based learning was not new to the Faculty, it lacked a standardized format. Explicitly defining the characteristics of various project types helped faculty members identify how their courses fit within these new typologies. This framework also serves as a guide for designing and resourcing the 'project-type courses,' which are a cornerstone of the engineering programs' curricular reform.