Laurent Lessard honored with University Excellence in Teaching Award
“I feel a great responsibility doing a good job teaching this material,” Lessard said on receiving award. “It’s definitely a huge honor.”
A SpaceX rocket safely landing back on Earth illustrates many foundational engineering concepts related to control theory, thermodynamics and material science.
It might come as no surprise, then, that Northeastern Professor Laurent Lessard assigns undergraduate students in his systems analysis and controls course a project in which they have to model and simulate landing a SpaceX rocket themselves.
One concept students learn is the importance of control systems, which are interconnected components used to ensure mechanical systems like rockets maintain their stability and predictability. They are key in providing the rockets with the precision to stick their landings and not blow up in the process, explained Laurent, a professor of mechanical and industrial engineering.
The rocket project reflects Lessard’s teaching style. He doesn’t teach important engineering theories and rules using an “eight-hundred page textbook,” he said. He prefers to teach through hands-on learning, using real world examples and online web tools to bolster his lessons.
That approach might be part of why he has been awarded Northeastern University’s Excellence in Teaching Award this year, he surmised.
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“I feel a great responsibility doing a good job teaching this material,” said Lessard after receiving the award. “It’s definitely a huge honor.”
The annual award honors Northeastern educators who have gone above and beyond teaching and inspiring students. This year, two faculty members were honored with the distinction: Laurent and Northeastern Law Professor Erin Islo.
Since joining the university in 2020, Lessard has focused on using technology to better engage his students.
An example of Lessard’s approach is in his recently launched digital system analysis and control theory textbook, in which he brings together interactive demonstrations he’s developed over the years with his lecture notes.
One interactive demonstration allows students to maintain a drone at specific altitudes using a proportional integral derivative (PID) controller, a feedback control device, he said.
By offering up experiences like those, Lessard is hoping to flip the script on the traditional ways of teaching on static paper.
“The reason I made this online book is I thought to myself, ‘I want to make something that has the effect of a textbook, but I want it to benefit from all the things a paperback book can’t do. “I want it to be something that students can carry around anywhere,” Lessard said.
He sees it as a necessary evolution in teaching and an important way to engage students who have grown up in the digital age. It’s part of his approach to meet students where they are, he said.
That quality is something that Peri Mishkin, who graduated Northeastern in 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, highlighted in her letter nominating Lessard for the award.
“His commitment to helping students succeed and his ability to make difficult material approachable was invaluable to me,” she wrote.
She added that while Lessard’s systems analysis and control class was “by far one of the toughest” classes she’s took while pursuing her degree, it was also one of her most rewarding.
Paola Kefallions, a Double Husky who graduated from Northeastern with a bachelor’s (2023) and master’s (2024) in mechanical engineering, shared similar sentiments.
“His teaching transformed not only what I learned, but how I understood my own capabilities,” she wrote in her nomination letter.
Lessard’s colleagues similarly have high praise for him and his work, particularly modernizing the systems analysis and control course, mentoring new faculty members and his way of engaging with students.
In his nomination letter, Rifat Sipahi, a professor of mechanical engineering and the director of Northeastern’s masters in robotics program, lauded Lessard’s “strong knowledge of course concepts, exceptional teaching skills, and deep understanding of learning pedagogy.”
“In my opinion, he is one of the most effective instructors I ever met in my over 19 years at NU,” he wrote.
