Yevgeniy Yesilevskiy

Yevgeniy Yesilevskiy focuses on project-based and active-learning courses that seek to engage and improve engineering education through the design process.  He is currently the Lecturer in the Discipline of Innovation and Design in Mechanical Engineering at the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science.  In that role he has taught Lab 1, Computer Graphics & Design, Machine Design, Review of Fundamentals of Engineering, Heat Transfer, Senior Design, Fundamental Design Tools, Global Engineering Concepts, and a variety of independent studies.  Additionally, as part of Columbia’s Summer High School Academic Program for Engineers, he has taught Innovation & Design as well as Walking Robots.  For his efforts he has received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching and the Edward and Carole Kim Faculty Involvement Award.

Outside of the classroom, he has focused on a variety of initiatives.  He received the Provost Innovative Course Design Award for introducing experimental design into the Junior Lab 1 course (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/378013608_Introducing_Experimental_Design_to_Promote_Active_Learning).  In the COVID-19 pandemic, he led the effort to send project kits to each student so that they could continue their hands-on education while being remote (https://magazine.columbia.edu/article/laboratory-fit-lockdown).  He also led the team that developed FaceShieldOne, a rapidly prototyped face shield that was used by New York hospitals (https://magazine.columbia.edu/article/engineers-and-librarians-rescue).  He is currently the lab director for Professor Mary Boyce’s Soft Materials Lab, where he oversees the teaching and use of the lab 3D printer and material testing machine.

Prior to Columbia University he taught undergraduate and graduate students at the Cooper Union, the University of Michigan, Syracuse University, and Columbia University.  He also worked with elementary-aged students through his volunteer efforts with 826 Michigan.  In his PhD research, he looked at the optimization of legged robots.  His goal was, through making legged robots move efficiently, to try to understand why humans and animals move the way they do.  While working as a Professor at Syracuse University, he ran the Invent@SU program, where he oversaw students conceptualize, design, and pitch novel inventions in a six-week competitive format.