She received her PhD in Education, Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Washington, an MS in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Washington, and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Prior to Purdue, Dr. Adams was the Assistant Director for Research at the Center for Engineering Learning and Teaching (CELT) and a Sr. Design Engineer in the semiconductor packaging industry and helped develop new uses of thin film technology. Dr. Adams’ research is concentrated in four interconnecting areas: cross-disciplinary thinking, acting, and being; design cognition and learning; views on the nature of engineering knowledge; and theories of change in transforming engineering education.