Marie C. Paretti is an Associate Professor of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech, where she co-directs the Virginia Tech Engineering Communications Center (VTECC). Her research focuses on communication in engineering design, interdisciplinary communication and collaboration, design education, and gender in engineering. She was awarded a CAREER grant from NSF to study expert teaching practices in capstone design courses nationwide, and is co-PI on several NSF grants to explore design education. Her work includes studies on the teaching and learning of communication in capstone courses, the effects of curriculum on design cognition, the effects of differing design pedagogies on retention and motivation, and the dynamics of cross-disciplinary collaboration in both academic and industry design environments.