Instructional Associate Professor and Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE) Undergraduate Program Director Yaping Wang, Associate Professor of ISE George Tan, Associate Professor of Digital Media Tony Liao, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Aaron Becker, and Information Science and Technology lecturer Spencer Bennett recently represented the Cullen College of Engineering at the 2025 Mayor’s Back to School & Health Fair Presented by Shell.
The Mayor’s Back to School & Health Fair is designed to help economically disadvantaged Houston-area elementary school students and their families as they prepare to return to school. The event includes the distribution of 20,000 backpacks with school supplies as well as on-site health screenings such as vision and mental health screenings and routine immunizations but also connects families to a wide range of services offered by the community.
“I became interested because it really is outreach to the community. I thought it was a great opportunity to engage the local community, especially as the Undergraduate Program Director for Industrial Engineering — a program with relatively low visibility to the general public,” she said. “It was a blast hat first time. I really enjoyed it.”
Though Wang, Becker, Bennett, Liao and Tan were not the only representatives of University of Houston Programs — other colleges and departments, including athletics, maintain an annual presence — they took seriously the responsibility of representing both their own departments and programs as well as Cullen College as a whole.
“It was great to see so many UH booths there and to be one of the exhibitors,” said Liao. “Being able to bring show students what type of work we do here at the Cullen College of Engineering is incredibly rewarding, because getting them that hands on experience can hopefully teach them that they can jump right into it and that it can be really fun.”
“I think this is a perfect opportunity to promote all of our majors, because all of these different students have their own different interests and professional aspirations,” added Wang.
Her own diverse academic background serves her well in this regard.
“I used to be a mechanical engineer, and I switched to computer science and then industrial engineering, so I know most of our majors pretty well and can do that introductory job to the audience — together with my colleagues, of course,” she added.
In addition to sharing their experience and expertise, Cullen faculty also demonstrated hands-on engagement activities including robotics and virtual reality headsets, both of which were popular with the younger audience.
“My students wanted me to bring an industrial robot arm, so my booth had a constant stream of local students who lined up to steer the robot arm to move an action figure of Hiro (protagonist of Disney's Big Hero 6), and I explained we were always looking for students who want to use math and science tools to model the real world,” said Becker.
“One of my favorite parts about being a professor is the opportunity for service and giving back to the community, so it was great to get to share different virtual reality experiences with very eager and excited elementary students,” added Bennett. “We had students from ages around 4 to 12 trying out cutting edge virtual reality headsets with hand/finger tracking and gesture recognition. There were a lot of laughs, and a lot of fun was had.”
High schoolers, on the other hand, were much more career focused. Industrial engineering student volunteers Begeta Mekuria and Lugman Ismat offered valuable support in engaging middle and high school students, and their parents, about the wide range of engineering majors available in the Cullen College of Engineering.
“The reality is that a lot of students, even after they graduate high school, still aren’t sure what they want to do. So I think it’s very meaningful to do this and engage with students when they’re seeking advice about the best fit for them,” said Wang. “I think a lot of people — including myself, the first time — underestimate the impact we can make at such an event.”
Though the fair has only just concluded, Wang is already thinking about plans for the future — ideas about how the event might be made even more successful both in continuing to serve the community and promoting the Cullen College of Engineering as a whole.
“Higher education is a landscape that changes every day, so how do we adapt to that? Engineering has the opportunity to change the future at a critical, challenging time — how are we going to educate students differently here than at any other university?
“Engaging with the community is one of the major players,” she said. “That’s why I think academic research and instruction beyond the classroom are so important both for current students and how we’re perceived in the future.”