Course Work
The Designated Emphasis in Development Engineering requires the completion of five courses: two core courses and three electives. These courses are taken in addition to the Ph.D. requirements of your home department, though there may be some overlap.
While there are no formal prerequisites to apply, students should have a solid foundation in quantitative analysis to succeed in the core courses (at a level roughly equivalent to Statistics 121).
The two core courses are:
DevEng C200: Design Evaluate & Scale Development Technologies
Units: 3
Offered: Fall Semester
The course provides project-based learning experience in the development of human-centered products, services, or systems. The course teaches the mindsets, skill sets, and toolsets of design thinking with a focus on its use in development. The course is focused around the following modules that cover core phases of the design process: observe and notice, frame and reframe, imagine and design, and make and experiment. Students will also learn the theory of change and methods for assessing potential impact of technology interventions. Students will be expected to learn ethnographic interviewing, webs of abstraction, ideation, and basics of both hardware and software prototyping. The course will engage social impact designers from industry as speakers and coaches.
This course MUST be taken before qualifying exams.
DevEng C200 is a foundational course usually offered in the fall, often co-taught by instructors with complementary backgrounds in technology and the social sciences. Instruction generally includes a faculty member affiliated with the Graduate Group in Development Engineering. Students in the DevEng DE must complete this course before their qualifying exams. The course is offered for three units credit as DevEng C200, and is a required course for both the DevEng DE and the MAsters of Development Engineering. It has been cross-listed in the past as Mech Eng C200 or MBA 290T and, space permitting, students from other departments can join the class. DevEng C200 is organized around analysis and application of case studies by multidisciplinary student teams according to three thematic modules:
- Weeks 1–5: Understanding the Problem, Context, and Needs
Students use human-centered design processes to integrate both quantitative and qualitative needs assessment techniques into the early stages of prototype design. - Weeks 6–8: Prototyping Solutions
Focuses on methods for developing low- and medium-fidelity prototypes, with an emphasis on hypothesis testing and iterative data evaluation. - Weeks 8–13: Taking It to the Field
Expands on prototyping through lab and field pilot testing, including exposure to technologies for monitoring, impact evaluation, business modeling, and strategies for scaling.
DevEng 210: Development Engineering Research and Practice Seminar (1-2 units)
In addition to these two core courses, students must take three electives from at least two of the three thematic modules within the DevEng program. The three modules are: Project Design, Evaluation Techniques and Methods for Measuring Social Impact, and Technology Development. Of the three electives, only one can be from the student’s home department. Students are encouraged to take one elective prior to the qualifying examination, but this is not required.
Module 1: Problem Identification and Project Design
This module includes topics such as human-centered design, participant feedback, project management, needs and usability testing.
- Civil & Environmental Engineering 209: Design for Sustainable Communities
- Development Engineering 215: Global Poverty: Challenges and Hopes in the New Millenium
- Development Practice 225: Innovation, Marketing, and Entrepreneurship
- Development Practice 232: Foundations of Public Health
- Energy and Resources 273: Social Science Research Methods
- Energy and Resources 298: Energy and Environmental Justice
- Environmental Science Policy and Management 226 Interdisciplinary Food and Agriculture Studies
- Environmental Science Policy and Management 230 Sociology of Agriculture
- Environmental Science Policy and Management 261: Sustainability and Society
- Environmental Science Policy and Management C282 Health Implications of Climate Change
- Information 213: User Interface Design and Development
- Information 214: Needs and Usability Assessment
- Information 272: Qualitative Research Methods for Information Systems and Management
- Information C283: Information and Communications Technologies for Development
- Information 287: Information and Communications Technologies for Social Enterprise
- Mechanical Engineering 290H: Green Product Development – Design for Sustainability
- Mechanical Engineering 290P: New Product Development – Design Theory and Methods
- Public Health 200k: Environmental Health Sciences Breadth Course
- Public Health 214: Eat.Think.Design
- Haas MBA 215.1: Business Strategies for Emerging Markets
Module 2: Evaluation Techniques and Methods for Measuring Social Impact
This module includes classes spanning topics such as large data analytics, statistical analysis for impact assessment, and design of field experiments. It also includes coursework on sustainability and scaling of projects, and on the broader impact on people and communities.
- Development Practice 222: Economics of Sustainable Resource Development
- Development Practice 228: Strategic Planning and Project Management
- Development Engineering 290: Special Topics in Development, topics vary
- Economics 219B: Applications of Psychology and Economics
- Economics 240A/B: Econometrics
- Economics 274: Global Poverty and Impact Evaluation
- Economics 270A/B: Microeconomics of Development
- Economics 271: Seminar in Development Economics
- Energy and Resources 275: Water and Development
- Energy and Resources 276: Climate Change Economics
- Environmental Science Policy and Management 260: Governance of Global Production
- Haas MBA 292: Social Sector Solutions
- Information 272: Qualitative Research Methods for Information Systems and Management
- MBA 296: Applied Impact Evaluation – How to Learn What Works to Lower Global Poverty
- Public Health 235: Impact Evaluation for Health Professionals
- Public Health 252C: Intervention Trial Design
- Public Policy 249: Statistics for Program Evaluation
- Public Policy/ Agricultural and Resource Economics 253: International Economic Development Policy
Module 3: Development Technologies
This modules spans work on prototyping and technology R&D, as well as the use of novel technologies to evaluate interventions.
- Bioengineering 168L: Practical Light Microscopy
- Civil & Environmental Engineering 290: Advanced Special Topics – Control Market and Privacy Tools for Participatory Sensing
- Civil & Environmental Engineering 210: Control of Water-Related Pathogens
- Civil & Environmental Engineering 211A: Environmental Physical-Chemical Processes
- Civil & Environmental Engineering 271: Sensors and Signal Interpretation
- Computer Science 289A: Introduction to Machine Learning
- Computer Science 294-1 Behavioral Data Mining
- Economics 291/Engineering 298B: Behavior Measurement and Change
- Energy and Resources C200: Energy and Society
- Energy and Resources 221: Energy, Climate, and Development
- Energy and Resources / Public Policy C271: Energy and Development
- ESPM 217: Political Economy of Climate Change
- ESPM C234: Green Chemistry, an Interdisciplinary Approach to Sustainability
- ESPM 261: Sustainability and Society
- Information 271B: Quantitative Research Methods for Information Systems and Management
- Information 283: Information and Communication Technologies and Development
- Information 290: Data-Intensive International Development
- ME 258: Convection and Phase Change Thermophysics
Qualifying Exams
All students must apply and be accepted to the Designated Emphasis in Development Engineering at least one semester before their qualifying examination. DevEng C200 must also be taken prior to qualifying exam. At least one faculty member of the Graduate Group in Development Engineering must participate in the qualifying examination committee, and will evaluate the exam from relevant perspectives. Satisfactory performance on the qualifying examination for the Ph.D. will be judged according to the established rules in the student’s home department.
For the application for qualifying examination, please note you will need a signature from both the home department head graduate advisor and DevEng head graduate advisor. Please receive the home department signature first and the DevEng GSAO will recieve the request to approve once your department has approve the committee.
Note: If you are a student interested in development engineering research but none of your faculty advisors / committee members are in the Graduate Group in Development Engineering, consider encouraging one of them to apply for membership in the Graduate Group in Development Engineering. They should contact DevEng Chair, Prof. Kara Nelson.
