Dr. Priya Deshpande, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in the Opus College of Engineering, has been named a 2025 Engineering Unleashed Fellow by the Kern Family Foundation (KFF). This prestigious national honor, awarded to 29 faculty members from 23 institutions across the country, recognizes faculty who demonstrate outstanding leadership in advancing undergraduate engineering education and embodying the entrepreneurial mindset championed by the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN).
Deshpande earned this recognition for her work to redesign Marquette’s undergraduate database design course and share her experience and ideas with engineering educators across the country. Her project transforms the course into a platform for entrepreneurial learning through gamified modules, real-world case studies and stakeholder-driven capstone projects. This approach equips students to connect technical skills with societal impact, preparing them to become proactive problem solvers who create meaningful value beyond the classroom.
As part of the fellowship, Deshpande will receive national recognition across KEEN, a $10,000 grant to advance her project and opportunities to collaborate with a network of Fellows nationwide. Her work is expected to directly impact undergraduate students at Marquette and extend its reach to peer institutions through publications, workshops and the Engineering Unleashed online platform.
This is the second year in a row that Marquette has been named among the Engineering Unleashed Fellows. In 2024, Dr. Tanya Onushko, assistant chair and lecturer in the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, was named a Fellow for her work to create a cross-disciplinary class project for biomedical engineering and occupational therapy students to collaborate on adaptive technology.
