PNW School of Engineering Continues Partnership with UTN Buenos Aires, Argentina

Purdue University Northwest’s (PNW) School of Engineering welcomes visiting lecturer Lorena Estefanía Godoy this fall 2021 semester as a part of the school’s continuing collaboration with Argentina’s Universidad Tecnológica Nacional (UTN).

Godoy is serving as a visiting lecturer in PNW’s Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering, teaching Elementary Engineering Design, becoming involved with engineering student groups and the campus community, and serving as a role model for PNW’s Hispanic engineering students. Godoy works in the Department of Civil Engineering at UTN, a technical university with approximately 70,000 engineering students across Argentina whose two main campuses are located in Buenos Aires.

“I am really interested in the opportunity to get to work with professors from the level that the Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering has at PNW,” said Godoy. “During my stay, I want to study any differences between the programs in Argentina and at PNW and learn about the viewpoints that professors have regarding the continuous update of technology and how to introduce them into the education of new professionals in the engineering fields.”

The partnership between PNW and UTN began in 2019 with Federico Gallo, a colleague of Godoy, as the first UTN professor to come to PNW. His tenure was an element of a broader initiative that resulted from interactions between Dietmar Rempfer, director of PNW’s School of Engineering, and Uriel Cukierman, director of the Center for Educational Research and Innovation at UTN.

“We are fortunate to once again be able to attract another faculty member from Universidad Tecnológica Nacional (UTN) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to join us as a visiting faculty member in our civil engineering program. Lorena Estefanía Godoy has been working as a practicing civil engineer in Argentina, and she has been teaching classes in civil and mechanical engineering at UTN,” said Rempfer. “With her infectious enthusiasm for teaching and working with our students and faculty on a number of projects, we are thrilled to have her join our ranks. In addition, her year-long visit to our campus is another building block in the development of our relationship with UTN, which will not only help support and provide role models for our Hispanic student population, but ultimately enrich our university as a whole.”

Godoy will be joined at PNW in the spring 2022 semester by her UTN colleague, José María Solá.