Teaching at Purdue
Demo examples for Warsinger’s heat transfer classes. Solar S’mores and a baked alaska. Inserts: cooking Marshmallow (left) and IR photo of torch (right)
David often teaches heat and mass transfer classes. This includes teaching ME 505 Intermediate Heat Transfer to graduate students, which he did in Fall 2022 and 2023. He also teaches ME 315 Heat and Mass Transfer for undergrad juniors and seniors. In Spring 2025, he teaches the 2:30 section. In Fall 2024, he ran the the lab. In Fall 2021 he taught the 9:30 section, in Fall 2019 and 2018, He taught the 12:30 section. Brightspace is the course website for both, while HW is submitted on gradescope.
David also includes fun demo’s in his classes, like caramelizing the meringue of Baked Alaska Ice Cream with a torch.
In Spring 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2020, David taught ME 463 Engineering Design. His section has often been the “research” section, which often has included water and energy systems, the Marine Energy Collegiate Competition teams, and other research-based projects. Interesting projects in his section have included a device for moving graphene sheets (which won Malott in 2022) and projects through his lab, which include a thermophoresis apparatus that will go to the International Space Station. The MECC team continues to recruit students, and now we also do the Hydropower Collegiate Competition team. Prof. Jose Garcia co-mentors these as of 2024.
MECC Outreach Summary photo: Purdue students, guided by Warsinger, develop activities and perform them at local elementary and middle schools. MECC team members meet with Warsinger 2-3x per week to plan the research and outreach competition components.
Teaching Outreach
Every year since 2021, Warsinger’s MECC teams have done local K-12 outreach as part of the competition. These activities have included potential and kinetic energy marbles, K-7 filter competition (using sand, coffee filters, etc), a water wheel activity, and building boats. These have often been in partnership with Purdue MINDS and PESC. They have been at West Lafayette Intermediate School, Oakland Elementary School, Vinton Elementary School, and Amelia Earhart Elementary School.
Previously, David has also led two study abroad trips to Peru for Water-Energy research with Prof. Luciano Castillo, the latest for Course Credit. These combined networking between institutes while collecting data on water pollution. For more information, here is a link to trip video and tweets on collaborative water publication, water sample collection, working with local students, presentations, engineering demo’s, meeting with Peruvian university leadership, and sports between Purdue and local students. David had two additional trips to Peru, to give talks to local officials, and run a workshop giving 6 talks with Prof. George Zhou, conducted in Spanish. These efforts helped kick of the Arequipa Nexus Institute, which continues to do research and outreach with Peruvian universities.
David is also involved with teaching education and collaboration in Africa, with projects in Kenya and Senegal, funded by the Shah Innovation lab. These included working with Moi University to produce a paper on safe groundwater reuse, and working with local girls schools in Senegal (project led by Tian Li and Jennifer Deboar), collecting data on local fabrics for atmospheric water harvesting.
David also seeks to provide educational resources to the broader public, including by maintaining a youtube channel, and writing wikipedia pages related to his teaching and research (e.g. on LEP, heat and mass transfer analogy, membrane dehumidification etc) and contributing to other pages (e.g. NF, RO, MD etc)
Sponsored by the Shah Innovation Lab, Warsinger and his team pursue projects that combine local education with research. Left image: paper coauthors, taking a water sample at a Borehole in Kenya, from left to right: Musa of World Concern, Dr. Moses NyoTonglo Arowo, and Abraham Chirchir. Right image: Girls school education activity in Senegal, from a project led by Tian Li and Jennifer DeBoar that focused on atmospheric water harvesting using local textiles.
David has been recognized for his educational outreach activities via local awards (2020 Community Change Hero Recognition, Voices for Water Awards by J. B. Dondolo) and national awards (Universities Council on Water Resources Early Career Award for Extension/Outreach/Engagement, 2024, and 1st place Outreach for MECC, 2024).
Service for Students
David has been a member on a variety of committees, such as the admissions committee. A notable success includes achieving a university-wide fee waiver for all US low income students and also other groups via FreeApp.
David has been on the ME Fellowship committee for years, was its chair from 2024-2025. He does fellowship reviews at the university level as well.
David was also the chair of the Heat Transfer Area Exam in mechanical engineering. As its chair, he initiated the first single-course waivers for ME qualifying exams. This approach, an idea from Prof. Amy Marconnet, is now shared across all subject areas except Math, which still requires 2 courses.
Graduate and Undergraduate Mentor
David works with many students and makes mentoring them a priority. As of December 2024, he has mentored >230 undergrads in his lab. Info on undergrad opportunities here. Effective undergrads can often earn coauthorship on conference and journal papers, and be supported for conference travel.
Successful Outcomes of Research Mentees: Graduate Davide’s undergrad mentees have gone to good grad schools, including Purdue (many), MIT(3), Stanford(2), Berkeley (4), UIUC, UPenn, UMD, CMU, UMich; UofCambridge, UofToronto, etc. His alumni work at Companies including: RWL Water, SpaceX, Tesla, Google, Stroud, Accenture, IDE, PA Consulting Group, Cummins, and ExonMobil. His grad students and PostDocs have secured faculty jobs at: UT Austin, University of Sharjah, Kuwait University, Korean Military Academy, Umm Al-Qura University, Rose Hulman University, Chungnam National University, and Abdullah Al Salem University.
Past Teaching Experience
MITxplore
Teacher of young ambitious students (grades 4-7) on unconventional math topics. More info
Teaching Assistant, MAE 221 Thermodynamics
Undergraduate Thermodynamics course for Mechanical & Aerospace majors. Role: Taught a 35-student section, graded homework, and held office hours. David received the highest rating by students among TA's (4.63/5), and had very high attendance (and defectors from other sections attended his). (2010)
Grader, TAM 203 Dynamics
TAM, Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. Standard Dynamics course for undergraduates. Role: Graded homework, held office hours, and attending course planning meetings. (2007)
Elementary School After-School Science Teacher
Beverly J. Martin Elementary School Role: Planned and taught weekly after-school lessons for the “A-plus” program, partnering with the local “Sciencenter,” teaching Kindergarten through 5th grade. (2007)
Freelance Tutor
Role: Taught math, physics, and chemistry for grades 6 through 12, undergraduate, and graduate students. David has been an avid tutor since he was in 7th grade.
Teaching Training: Courses & Certificates
Effective College Teaching Workshop, (Purdue), 2019
Engineering Diversity & Inclusion Workshop, (Purdue) 2019
Fundamentals of Teaching Science (Yale) 2017
Kaufman Teaching Certificate (MIT) 2016
Learner’s Workshop (MIT) 2015
An Introduction to Evidenced-Based Undergraduate STEM Teaching (MOOC) 2015
Teaching College-Level Science and Engineering (MIT)
Engineering TA Development Program (Cornell) 2010
The Art of Teaching (Cornell) 2007