Tufts University
Elissa Milto is Director of Outreach at Tufts Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (CEEO). She is particularly interested in using open-ended, client-centered problems to bring engineering to elementary and middle school students, exploring ways that students with different learning styles and interests can become excited by and access engineering. She leads Novel Engineering (formerly project Integrating Engineering and Literacy: NSF #1020243) a project that uses classroom texts as a context for open-ended engineering design projects. Prior to working at the CEEO, Elissa was a classroom teacher working with students with special needs. She continues to work with students with special needs connected to research looking at client-based design challenges and the vocational and social skills of middle school students with autism spectrum disorder.
Favorite children’s book: A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park.
“It’s one of my favorite books from the CEEO’s Novel Engineering project. I like this book because it contains multiple engineering challenges for which students can design solutions and because it helps students understand what life is like in a different part of the world and empathize with the characters.”