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Kurt DeGoede, Ph.D.

Engineering & Physics

Professor 

Department of Engineering and Physics

Elizabethtown College

Elizabethtown, PA  17022

Office:  Esbenshade Room 161-B

Dr. DeGoede completed a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan after earning a B.S. in Engineering Physics from Hope College, and a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University. Between degrees, he also spent three great years as a project manager at Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan.

He has focused his research on multidisciplinary biomechanics projects, collaborating with local physicians, faculty, and students in Occupational Therapy and Athletics. Professor DeGoede enjoys mentoring 1 or 2 engineering summer research students every summer (since 2002), in paid undergraduate summer research assistantships.

Some of these studies have examined basic science questions in movement and injury biomechanics and human performance, often presenting their work at the annual meeting of the American Society of Biomechanics.  Others have helped develop two clinical rehabilitation tools eTherapy/E-MAT (a fine motor control therapy tool) and E-MAT (a gross motor control therapy tool). Clinical investigations using these tools have been presented at the annual meetings of the Hand Society of Hand Therapists and the Neuro-Developmental Treatment Association.

In 2010, Dr. DeGoede developed a study abroad program in West Africa built around collaborative social enterprise projects. Etown students are partnering with students at the University of The Gambia and other Gambians, to apply their education to solve real-world problems through capstone projects.

He teaches across the curriculum from 1st-semester students in all disciplines of engineering to 4th-year students in Mechanical engineering. He enjoys being part of a great faculty team at Elizabethtown looking to keep our curriculum evolving, taking advantage of new technologies and pedagogies to continuously enhance the program. He teaches using an active/coaching style in the classroom focused on applying the material in the class together and has published numerous papers on engineering teaching pedagogy, including award-winning techniques in mastery-based assessments.

Word on the street is that he escapes from faculty meetings by literally running off to cross country/track practices, bicycles to campus in ill-advised conditions, and hacks away on the tenor sax with the college jazz band.