Explore Courses taught by Prof. Syal lying at the intersection of sustainable energy and transportation, human-centered design, and systems modeling

University of Michigan Courses

  • MECHENG 489: Sustainable Engineering and Design

    ME 489 covers economic, environmental and social aspects of sustainability as they pertain to engineering design with a training in the broader context in which these problems exist. The course covers life cycle assessment, carbon/water/energy footprints, economic assessments, mass/energy balances, air/water pollutants, modeling of environmental pollutant concentrations, engineering economics, social considerations, pollution prevention, resource conservation, human and eco-toxicity, life cycle costing, and energy systems.

  • MECHENG 450: Design and Manufacturing III

    ME 450 is the mechanical engineering senior design capstone course. Students are exposed to the design process from concept through analysis to prototype validation and report. Projects are proposed from the different areas of study within mechanical engineering and reflect the expertise of instructing faculty.

Previous Courses

  • CME 197 / EARTH 197 Human-Centered Design Methods in Data Science

    In today's society, the most pressing data science problems we face exist in a complex sociotechnical ecosystem and cannot be solved using the numbers alone. In this five-week short course, students will learn how to apply human-centered design methods to solve data science problems and how to pair traditional data with a diversity of other types of data to redefine problems and gain innovative insight. The course will focus on empathy-based frameworks to analyze data, problem definition and redefinition, and ideation. Additional skills in critique and storytelling will also be covered. Classes will be highly interactive and team-based. 

    Stanford University

Guest Lectures and Workshops

  • "Build to Think: Breaking Down the Design Process"

    Guest lecture to discuss prototype conceptualization and building for undergraduates designing 3D scapes of religious texts and analyses. Lecture included in-class activities and tools for prototyping.

    Religious Studies 147: Building Heaven and Hell, Stanford University

  • Design Thinking for Data Science Problems

    Workshop for Women in Data Science Worldwide Conference on March 8, 2021.

    Viewable on YouTube