Deb Chachra facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Deb Chachra
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| Born | 1971 (age 53–54) |
| Alma mater | University of Toronto (BS, MA, PhD) |
| Awards | NSF Career Award (2009) |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Olin College Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Thesis | The influence of lifelong exposure to environmental fluoride on bone quality in humans (2001) |
| Doctoral advisor | Marc Grynpas |
Deb Chachra (born in 1971) is a scientist and a professor at Olin College. She studies "materials," which are the stuff everything is made of. She focuses on materials found in living things and in important structures like roads and bridges.
Professor Chachra is also very interested in new ways to teach engineering. She helped start the materials science department at Olin College. In 2023, she wrote a book called How Infrastructure Works, which explains how important structures are built and used.
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Early Life and Education
Deb Chachra grew up in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada. Her parents moved there from New Delhi, India. When she was young, she dreamed of becoming an astronaut.
She went to the University of Toronto to study engineering. There, she earned three degrees: a Bachelor of Science, a Master of Arts, and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). Her PhD research looked at how fluoride affects the strength of bones.
During her studies, she also researched Colletes bees. These bees make a special, see-through material, like cellophane, to wrap their eggs. She discovered that the bees first create silk fibers, then add layers of plastic-like material.
Career and Research
After finishing her PhD, Professor Chachra became a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She worked in a lab studying how bones change as people get older. She also looked at how long artificial heart valves can last.
Later, she joined Olin College as a professor. She was one of the first professors hired there, and the first class of students graduated in 2006. She continued her research on fluoride and bones.
Studying Engineering Education
Professor Chachra studies how engineering students learn and what their experiences are like. She is part of Olin College's Collaboratory, a group that works on new ideas in education.
She writes articles for Prism magazine, which is for the American Society for Engineering Education. In her articles, she talks about new ways to teach engineering. She also looks at how women and minority students get involved in engineering. She works to find ways to help more of them stay in engineering programs.
Professor Chachra works with engineers around the world to create new education programs. She has studied how learning in groups and working on projects can help students. She also explored how to start a bioengineering program without needing a lot of resources. In 2013, she created a "Gender and Engineering Exploration Kit" to learn more about gender and computing.
She has also written for Nature magazine about the experiences of women engineers. She often visits the University of Toronto to share her ideas about designing engineering education.
Awards and Honors
Professor Chachra received a special award called the National Science Foundation CAREER Award. This award helped her continue her work on engineering education. In 2009, she also won the William Elgin Wickenden Award from the American Society for Engineering Education.
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Professor Deb Chachra
