From a very young age and through my graduate studies, a number of classmates, colleagues, and friends envisioned me being in education. For me, the appeal of being an educator is the ability to help and mentor others while having a lot of freedom in developing your craft. The engineering part came only after taking high school chemistry. My high school chemistry teacher, Mr. Goodfellow, suggested that my abilities in chemistry and math would be a good fit for chemical engineering. He was right – he also correctly predicted I’d go for a Ph.D.

I think students most admire my desire to give constructive feedback in a very prompt manner, my availability to answer their questions about my courses, chemical engineering, and their futures, and my willingness to challenge them. Professionally I try to show dedication to our college, our profession, and to our students, and engage them for advice and ideas about how to improve, not only the student experience, but also our experience as faculty members and colleagues. 

Preparing students

My teaching responsibilities have focused primarily on juniors and seniors; the best way I can encourage all students is to show that what I’m teaching them will prove beneficial to them in their careers. After completing my controls and lab classes in the spring of the junior year, many students report back to me (independent of their grade in the class) in the fall of their senior year about how they used not only the course material, but also their developed skills in troubleshooting, writing, and oral presentation during their internships that put them noticeably ahead of peer interns. 

My mentality in preparing students for their next step is actually rooted in the ideas of the two professors I assisted in teaching: Mike Duncan at Cornell and Scott Fogler (my Ph.D. advisor) at Michigan. Both of them believed in both the concept of developing problem solving and creative thinking skills and the importance in understanding the fundamentals. If these skills have been fostered, tuned and refined, graduates will be able to handle whatever challenges and demands face them in this ever changing world in which we live. I think this adage is particularly apt in chemical engineering, because the first jobs for our students are in such. In addition, while developing course materials, I attempt to provide examples from a number of different industries that hire chemical engineers and incorporate different computer programs to solidify the understanding of concepts. 

ASEE’s community

I think the best benefit of being a member of ASEE is being a member of a community where people from all different majors from a variety of institution types come together and are excited about teaching – and more importantly – about exchanging ideas about best practices and improving the quality of our graduates. Although what works at a small college such as Lafayette may not exactly fit at a large state university and vice versa, ASEE provides a means for these people to come together and learn from one another and modify these ideas for appropriate implementation elsewhere.

Whenever I have the chance, I really enjoy cooking and traveling. In addition, I enjoy being a spectator at both sporting events and performing arts events, both on and off campus. However, it is particularly enjoyable to see my students participating in a swim meet or directing a musical or playing the tuba in the band.