Kristina Edström

Kristina Edström is Associate Professor in Engineering Education Development. She is an educational developer at KTH since 1997, and participates in engineering education reform at KTH, nationally and internationally. 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 for engineering education reform, and Kristina has since 2001 been involved in developing and disseminating the CDIO approach. She is co-author of Crawley et al. (2014)Rethinking Engineering Education: The CDIO Approach.

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

Kristina is course responsible and examiner for KTH's supervisor training,LH207V Doctoral Supervision (3 credits), since 2020. She originally developed this course together with Professor Lars Kloo, and conducted the first four course rounds in 2007-2008. Kristina also created the course known as "LU1",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. Kristina received the KTH Prize for outstanding achievements in education 2004 and was elected lifetime honorary member or THS student union in 2009.

Since 2024, Kristina is also part time (20%) Professor in Innovation in Engineering Education at TU Delft.

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.

PhD students

• Dr. Charnaldo Ndaipa (defended in 2023)
• Dr Cecilia Almlöv (defended in 2024)
• Kieve Saling
• Camilla Björn
• Anna-Karin Högfeldt