Kitts Receives Brutocao Award for Curriculum Innovation
On September 11, President Michael Engh, S.J. and Provost Dennis C. Jacobs celebrated the achievements of Santa Clara’s faculty with an award ceremony on campus. At this event, Mechanical Engineering Professor Christopher Kitts received The Brutocao Family Foundation Award for Curriculum Innovation.
Following is the announcement:
Chris Kitts holds many titles, from endowed faculty member and director for the Robotics Systems Lab at Santa Clara University, to the director for the Silicon Valley Center for Robotic Exploration and Space Technologies at NASA—to name a few. But equally impressive is his work in curriculum development.
Kitts has led significant revisions to courses as well as creating a number of new courses by himself, including Smart Product Design, Space Systems I & II, Satellite Operations Lab, and special topics courses like Mobile Multi-Robot Systems. He has also worked with faculty across the University to create courses that expose engineering students to entrepreneurial topics.
His innovation has been felt at the macro level as well, creating the robotics and mechatronic systems technical area for the M.S. in mechanical engineering degree and helping create the design thinking pathway, which is chosen by 40 percent of undergraduate students. Most recently, he crafted the innovation, design, and entrepreneurship minor, which has been declared by approximately a dozen students only a year after being introduced.
Congratulations, Dr. Kitts!