This study uses an experimental approach to explore the relationship between individuals’ disciplinary backgrounds in engineeringand how they draw objects that are common to different disciplines within nanoscience and nanotechnology. We recruited graduatestudents (n= 16) from three engineering disciplines at the University of Washington. We report responses to a design task wheresubjects were asked to draw diagrammatic representations that captured their interpretation of disciplinary prompts from threeareas of engineering—Biological Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering. Findings highlight two importantelements of modern academic scholarship and teaching in engineering: (i) baseline visual communication competency appears to behigher than anticipated; (ii) interdisciplinary boundary-crossing appears to be on the rise, because while there are disciplinary biasesit appears that there are much fewer than expected. We discuss implications of these findings for teaching in areas such asnanoscience and nanotechnology and suggest future avenues that might elaborate on related questions pertaining to disciplinaryboundary-crossing, nanotechnology and visual design.