ABET Innovation Award

About the Award

The ABET Innovation Award recognizes vision and commitment that challenge the status-quo in technical education.

It honors an individual and/or a program or an institutional team that has broken new ground by developing and implementing innovation into an ABET-accredited program.

True innovation is hard to define, but easy to identify. This award distinguishes programs that have brought a new dimension to education in areas like: curriculum development, laboratory experiences, teaching methodologies, cross-disciplinary programs, experiential learning – almost anything designed and proven to improve a student’s educational experience.

2026 Winner

Matthew Ohland

For exceptional leadership enabling innovative solutions and exemplary contributions to the engineering education community by establishing CATME Team Tools, with the vision of every student having a managed team experience.

Dr. Matthew W. Ohland is the Dale and Suzi Gallagher Professor and Associate Head of Engineering Education at Purdue University. He has degrees from Swarthmore College, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the University of Florida. His research on forming and managing teams and the longitudinal study of engineering students has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Sloan Foundation and with his collaborators has been recognized for the best paper published in the Journal of Engineering Education in 2008, 2011, 2019, and 2024 and in the IEEE Transactions on Education in 2011 and 2015. Dr. Ohland is represents ASEE as an ABET Program Evaluator and on the Engineering Accreditation Commission. He was the 2002–2006 President of Tau Beta Pi and is a Fellow of the ASEE, IEEE, and AAAS. He was inducted into the ASEE Hall of Fame in 2024.

Award Benefits

• Recognition at the ABET Awards program in the fall
• $10,000 cash prize
• Recipient and their work will be featured on the award page, recognized in a press release, ABET news announcement and ABET social media pages.

Past Recipients

2025: Georgia Tech CREATE-X Program

For empowering students of multiple ABET-accredited programs with the entrepreneurial confidence, skills, and experience to identify real-world problems and pursue impactful ventures in a fast-evolving technological and socio-economic landscape. Learn more.

2024: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Engineering Design Program

For creating an ABET accredited program integrating humanities and technical topics in a hands-on, human-centered, multi-disciplinary approach to design, fostering student passion about design and its potential to improve society. Learn more.

2023: U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon®

For providing innovative hands‐on STEM educational experiences and industry mentoring in Building Science that prepares students for the clean energy workforce through the Solar Decathlon Design and Build Challenges. Learn more.

2021: Villanova University College of Engineering Career Compass Program

For successful implementation of a mandatory undergraduate engineering program that stimulates and develops broad-based innovative leadership and management skills, preparing each graduate for entry into a dynamic workplace. Learn more.

2020: IT Students Capacity Building Program by iSITE — Integrated Southern Tagalog Association of IT Education

For providing collaborative industry-aligned seminars, training and conferences to students in geographically dispersed IT programs and promoting opportunities for students to interact, learn and showcase their work. Learn more.

2019: Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) Consortium

For community-building around and dissemination of the Vertically Integrated Projects model, a scalable, cost-effective approach to undergraduate research adopted by 35 colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad. Learn more.

2018: Formula Hybrid Competition, founded by the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth

For national leadership and impact in uniquely challenging students in ABET-accredited programs to collaborate across disciplines to provide innovative design experiences and build fuel-efficient, high-performance hybrid vehicles. Learn more.

2017: Iron Range Engineering and Twin Cities Engineering, Minnesota State University, Mankato

For educating their students in innovative ABET-accredited programs that feature trans-disciplinary thinking, industry-sponsored project-based learning, experiential learning in context, competency-based assessments and significant exposure to professionalism, design and creativity. Learn more.

2016: Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) – Robotics Engineering Program

For developing and implementing the first ABET-accredited undergraduate Robotics Engineering program in the United States. The program incorporates an innovative, project-based curriculum that integrates computer science, engineering and entrepreneurship. It is producing large numbers of successful graduates, while serving as a model for Robotics Engineering programs at other institutions. Learn more.