By Mike Lehman
Mary Lynn Realff has been awarded the prestigious Ben C. Sparks Medal by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The award recognizes Realff’s work helping students from different disciplines to work together with effective, innovative methods.
Established in memory of Ben C. Sparks, a devoted member of ASME and a dedicated teacher of mechanical engineering technology and mechanical engineering, the award recognizes demonstrated long-term commitment to advancing mechanical engineering through multidisciplinary research, mentoring, and impactful work in education, leadership, and innovation in connecting research to industry and policy.
Over a 25-year career at the Georgia Institute of Technology as associate professor in the School of Material Science and Engineering (MSE), the School’s associate chair for undergraduate programs, and the founding director of the Effective Team Dynamics Initiative, Realff has made significant contributions to the field through her innovative teaching methods and dedication to student success.
Teaching and Innovation
Realff’s passion for teaching led her to found Georgia Tech’s Effective Team Dynamics Initiative (ETD). During her time teaching across the curriculum, she discovered the necessity for effective group work for students to succeed in both academia and industry. Realff discovered that blending strength-based assessment with team-based projects was an effective tool to enhance working in teams across disciplines. Explaining the impact of ETD, a colleague at Georgia Tech noted that Realff “creates innovative solutions, assesses their effectiveness, finds ways to sustain them for future students, and enables other institutions to implement these innovations.”
Another colleague from the University of Texas stated that her work on UT’s campus “better prepared students to work in interdisciplinary teams to solve problems that could not be solved individually.” The ETD has significantly impacted students at Georgia Tech and beyond. As the founding director, Realff has equipped students with essential teamwork skills, preparing them for multidisciplinary teamwork across industries. Her teambuilding work has been integrated into several courses, including First Year Seminars, Introduction to Engineering Graphics and Design, Creative Decisions and Design, and Capstone and Interdisciplinary Capstone Design courses. Her approach draws from strength-based concepts of education and implements tools such as Gallup Strengths to improve team dynamics.
Service and Leadership
Beyond her teaching and research, Realff is actively involved in the engineering education community. She was the principal investigator for a National Science Foundation Innovations in Graduate Education Grant, a project developing curricula for interdisciplinary graduate research teams. She also led a team that built a facilitator guide for trainers that is used at other institutions.
Additionally, Realff has advocated for new policies and practices to increase diversity for both Georgia Tech and ASME. These policy changes have had an impact in graduate, undergraduate, and K-12 education. More recently, she has helped build teamwork skills and interdisciplinary teams with students and research personnel in National Science Foundation Engineering Research Centers.
As noted by a colleague, “Mary Lynn is a person who can see ways to innovate and systematically change the educational experience to prepare students in an ever-changing world.”