Abstract: U.S. competitiveness in advanced manufacturing depends not only on engineers, but on an interdependent engineering and technical workforce that includes engineering technologists and technicians. Yet, how federally funded engineering workforce development (EWD) programs define, differentiate, and communicate the value of engineering and technical roles remains underexamined. Positioned within engineering education research that examines pathways, professional formation, and the education–workforce interface, this study investigates how a national, federally supported EWD initiative constructs and portrays engineering and technical occupational roles through its public-facing program materials and leader narratives. Drawing on qualitative document analysis and semi-structured interviews within an embedded qualitative case study of a national EWD initiative, the study applies a sociocultural value-systems lens to examine how patterned beliefs about knowledge, skill, and expertise are enacted at the programmatic and organizational level. Findings reveal consistent distinctions in how roles are framed across dimensions of work, worker, and occupation, with implications for engineering pathways, learner identity formation, and program alignment across educational and workforce contexts. By foregrounding the often-overlooked roles of technologists and technicians, this work contributes new empirical insight to engineering education scholarship and extends EER conversations beyond degree-centric models to include federally supported workforce pathways relevant to contemporary manufacturing practice.

Biography: Winifred Opoku is a doctoral candidate in Engineering Education at The Ohio State University. She is an embedded researcher with the NSF-funded HAMMER Engineering Research Center, where her work engages questions of engineering workforce development, advanced manufacturing, and cross-sector collaboration. Winifred is also a member of the Beliefs in Engineering Research Group, contributing to scholarship that examines how beliefs, values, and cultural assumptions shape engineering education and practice. Her broader research interests sit at the intersection of engineering education, workforce development, and innovation systems, with a focus on how educational and workforce institutions construct pathways and roles across the engineering and technical workforce. Prior to graduate study, Winifred trained and worked as an HVAC/MEP design engineer, an experience that continues to inform her research perspective. Outside of research, she enjoys graphic design and creative projects that blend technical thinking with visual storytelling.