Kristina Edström

Kristina Edström is Associate Professor inEngineering Education Development. She is an educational developer at KTH since 1997, and participates in engineering education reform at KTH, nationally and internationally. She is also a speaker and evaluator. She holds a MSc in Engineering from Chalmers and a PhD inTechnology and Learning from KTH.

KTH is one of the four universities to found the CDIO Initiative, and Kristina has since 2001 been involved in developing and disseminating the CDIO approach for engineering education reform. She is a member of the CDIO Council and a co-author of Crawleyet al. (2014)Rethinking Engineering Education: The CDIO Approach.

Kristina is also active in SEFI as a member of the working group for Engineering Education Research. Since 2018 she is the Editor-in-Chief ofEuropean Journal of Engineering Education, published by SEFI.

At KTH, Kristina customized the course LH201V Teaching and Learning in Higher Education for KTH faculty and led over 25 groups with some 700 participants passing the course in 2004-2012. Together with Professor Lars Kloo she developed the course LH207V Research Supervision, and led the first four groups in 2007-2008. Since 2020 she teaches the course again, with Erik Fransén.

Kristina received the KTH Prize for outstanding achievements in education 2004 and was elected lifetime honorary member or THS student union in 2009.

Current research

In her research, Kristina takes a critical approach to the “what”, “why”, and “how” of engineering education development. Her PhD thesis, defended in 2017, focuses on the tensions between the academic and professional aspects in engineering education, from a curriculum perspective, a historical perspective, and an institutional perspective. Reflecting critically on these insights, some implications are suggested for engineering education research and development.