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Karen M. Bursic, Ph.D., P.E. has had a successful academic career in Industrial Engineering that includes administration, teaching, and research. Her career has also included industry experience in quality and operations management consulting, production management and industrial engineering. She has developed outstanding business, communication, and interpersonal skills through considerable educational, consulting, service, and leadership experience and is excited for the opportunity to use those skills to serve ASEE as a PIC Chair if elected. Dr. Bursic currently serves as Professor and Undergraduate Program Director in Industrial Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to joining the department, she worked as a Senior Consultant for Ernst and Young and as an Industrial Engineer for General Motors Corporation. She teaches courses in engineering economics and engineering management and has previously taught probability and statistics, engineering analysis, and engineering computing. Her research has focused on improving engineering education and she has been working and publishing in this area since 1994. She has also done research and published work in the areas of engineering and project management. Her most recent work includes “An engineering economy concept inventory”, The Engineering Economist, 65:3, 179-194, which was awarded the Eugene L. Grant Award from the Engineering Economy Division of ASEE for best paper in the journal in 2020. She was also awarded the Best Paper Award (2017) at the ASEE annual conference for the Engineering Economy Division as well as the Outstanding Teaching Award (2015) from the Engineering Economy Division of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE). Dr. Bursic has been an active member of ASEE since 1995 and served as newsletter editor, secretary/treasurer, program chair and then division chair for the Engineering Economy Division. She currently serves as a delegate to the Commission on Diversity Equity and Inclusion (CDEI) of ASEE for the Industrial Engineering Division. She has also served on several award committees and as a paper reviewer for multiple divisions. Dr. Bursic is a senior member of IISE and has held leadership positions at the division level in that organization as well. She is an Area Editor for Case Studies for The Engineering Economist. Dr. Bursic received her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Industrial Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and is a registered Professional Engineer in the state of Pennsylvania.
Katy Luchini Colbry is the Assistant Dean for Graduate Student Services at the College of Engineering at Michigan State University, where she completed undergraduate degrees in political theory and in computer science. A recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, she earned PhD and MSE degrees in computer science and engineering from the University of Michigan. Dr. Luchini Colbry has published dozens of peer-reviewed works related to her interests in engineering education and graduate student success. She has been a regular contributor to the ASEE Annual Conference for more than a decade, winning several best paper recognitions and leading a variety of workshops, panel discussions, and special sessions.
Dr. Colbry has a long history of service to the Graduate Studies Division of ASEE, having volunteered since 2015 in a variety of roles including chairperson, program chair, secretary-treasurer, and past chair. As part of this service, she has helped update GSD bylaws; developed communications and marketing materials; organized GSD activities and paper submissions for several national conferences; and led numerous meetings and events.
Beyond ASEE, Dr. Luchini Colbry has been recognized as a Master Facilitator by the National Research Mentor Network and invited to lead facilitator training programs for universities and research facilities through the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research. She is currently co-PI for two NSF-funded projects to enhance the engineering workforce: one is the CyberAmbassadors professional development program, which offers training in communication, teamwork, and leadership skills to support interdisciplinary work. This project has trained more than 7,200 participants to date, including a workshop on communication skills for engineers offered as part of the 2022 ASEE Annual Conference. The second project is a joint effort with Spelman College (a historically black institution serving women) to expand opportunities and increase diversity in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math). This effort is developing a five-year BS+MS program that allows students to earn a bachelor’s degree in science or engineering from a historically black institution along with a master’s degree in data science from Michigan State University.
For more than 20 years, Dr. Luchini Colbry has volunteered for the Engineering Futures (EF) program of Tau Beta Pi, the Engineering Honor Society. She has facilitated hundreds of interactive workshops for engineering students and professionals, with a focus on building participants’ interpersonal communications, teamwork, leadership, mentoring and problem solving skills. Since 2015 she has served as the volunteer Director of Engineering Futures, taking responsibility for recruiting, training and supporting dozens of volunteer facilitators who provide professional development seminars for engineering students and professionals across the United States. During the pandemic, she launched “EF Online” to provide ongoing professional development webinars, and this popular program has served thousands of participants from around the world in the last two years.
Dr. Rungun Nathan is currently a professor and program chair for the mechanical engineering in the division of engineering at Penn State Berks. He joined in 2007 as an assistant professor and was promoted in 2012 to associate professor. He has over 25 combined years of increasing responsibilities in industry/academia in C-DOT, Indian Institute of Science (IISc.), Villanova University and Penn State Berks.
He got his BS from University of Mysore, Post graduate diploma from Indian Institute of Science, MS from Louisiana State University and PhD from Drexel University. He has worked in Electronic Packaging in C-DOT (India) and then as a Scientific Assistant in the Robotics laboratory at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. He worked as a post-doc at University of Pennsylvania in Haptics and Virtual Reality. His research interests are in the areas of unmanned vehicles particularly flapping flight and frisbees, mechatronics, robotics, MEMS, virtual reality, and haptics, and teaching with technology. He has ongoing research in flapping flight, Frisbee flight dynamics, lift in porous material and brain traumatic injury. He is an active member of APS (DFD), ASEE, ASME and AGMA and reviewer for several ASME, IEEE and ASEE, FIE conferences and journals.
He has been an active member of the Mechanics Division and Mechanical Division since 2006. Starting as a member at large in the Mechanics Division he was the Chair of the division in 2012-2013. He has also been active with the Mechanical Engineering Division and is the Chair of the division in 2021-2022. He is also been an active member of Engineering Technology Division, Computer in Education, Education Research Methods, Multidisciplinary Engineering, Experimentation and Laboratory-Oriented Studies Division and Systems Engineering. He is currently nominated as a Program Evaluator for ABET.
Karen M. Bursic, Ph.D., P.E. has had a successful academic career in Industrial Engineering that includes administration, teaching, and research. Her career has also included industry experience in quality and operations management consulting, production management and industrial engineering. She has developed outstanding business, communication, and interpersonal skills through considerable educational, consulting, service, and leadership experience and is excited for the opportunity to use those skills to serve ASEE as a PIC Chair if elected. Dr. Bursic currently serves as Professor and Undergraduate Program Director in Industrial Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to joining the department, she worked as a Senior Consultant for Ernst and Young and as an Industrial Engineer for General Motors Corporation. She teaches courses in engineering economics and engineering management and has previously taught probability and statistics, engineering analysis, and engineering computing. Her research has focused on improving engineering education and she has been working and publishing in this area since 1994. She has also done research and published work in the areas of engineering and project management. Her most recent work includes “An engineering economy concept inventory”, The Engineering Economist, 65:3, 179-194, which was awarded the Eugene L. Grant Award from the Engineering Economy Division of ASEE for best paper in the journal in 2020. She was also awarded the Best Paper Award (2017) at the ASEE annual conference for the Engineering Economy Division as well as the Outstanding Teaching Award (2015) from the Engineering Economy Division of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE). Dr. Bursic has been an active member of ASEE since 1995 and served as newsletter editor, secretary/treasurer, program chair and then division chair for the Engineering Economy Division. She currently serves as a delegate to the Commission on Diversity Equity and Inclusion (CDEI) of ASEE for the Industrial Engineering Division. She has also served on several award committees and as a paper reviewer for multiple divisions. Dr. Bursic is a senior member of IISE and has held leadership positions at the division level in that organization as well. She is an Area Editor for Case Studies for The Engineering Economist. Dr. Bursic received her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Industrial Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and is a registered Professional Engineer in the state of Pennsylvania.
Katy Luchini Colbry is the Assistant Dean for Graduate Student Services at the College of Engineering at Michigan State University, where she completed undergraduate degrees in political theory and in computer science. A recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, she earned PhD and MSE degrees in computer science and engineering from the University of Michigan. Dr. Luchini Colbry has published dozens of peer-reviewed works related to her interests in engineering education and graduate student success. She has been a regular contributor to the ASEE Annual Conference for more than a decade, winning several best paper recognitions and leading a variety of workshops, panel discussions, and special sessions.
Dr. Colbry has a long history of service to the Graduate Studies Division of ASEE, having volunteered since 2015 in a variety of roles including chairperson, program chair, secretary-treasurer, and past chair. As part of this service, she has helped update GSD bylaws; developed communications and marketing materials; organized GSD activities and paper submissions for several national conferences; and led numerous meetings and events.
Beyond ASEE, Dr. Luchini Colbry has been recognized as a Master Facilitator by the National Research Mentor Network and invited to lead facilitator training programs for universities and research facilities through the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research. She is currently co-PI for two NSF-funded projects to enhance the engineering workforce: one is the CyberAmbassadors professional development program, which offers training in communication, teamwork, and leadership skills to support interdisciplinary work. This project has trained more than 7,200 participants to date, including a workshop on communication skills for engineers offered as part of the 2022 ASEE Annual Conference. The second project is a joint effort with Spelman College (a historically black institution serving women) to expand opportunities and increase diversity in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math). This effort is developing a five-year BS+MS program that allows students to earn a bachelor’s degree in science or engineering from a historically black institution along with a master’s degree in data science from Michigan State University.
For more than 20 years, Dr. Luchini Colbry has volunteered for the Engineering Futures (EF) program of Tau Beta Pi, the Engineering Honor Society. She has facilitated hundreds of interactive workshops for engineering students and professionals, with a focus on building participants’ interpersonal communications, teamwork, leadership, mentoring and problem solving skills. Since 2015 she has served as the volunteer Director of Engineering Futures, taking responsibility for recruiting, training and supporting dozens of volunteer facilitators who provide professional development seminars for engineering students and professionals across the United States. During the pandemic, she launched “EF Online” to provide ongoing professional development webinars, and this popular program has served thousands of participants from around the world in the last two years.
Dr. Rungun Nathan is currently a professor and program chair for the mechanical engineering in the division of engineering at Penn State Berks. He joined in 2007 as an assistant professor and was promoted in 2012 to associate professor. He has over 25 combined years of increasing responsibilities in industry/academia in C-DOT, Indian Institute of Science (IISc.), Villanova University and Penn State Berks.
He got his BS from University of Mysore, Post graduate diploma from Indian Institute of Science, MS from Louisiana State University and PhD from Drexel University. He has worked in Electronic Packaging in C-DOT (India) and then as a Scientific Assistant in the Robotics laboratory at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. He worked as a post-doc at University of Pennsylvania in Haptics and Virtual Reality. His research interests are in the areas of unmanned vehicles particularly flapping flight and frisbees, mechatronics, robotics, MEMS, virtual reality, and haptics, and teaching with technology. He has ongoing research in flapping flight, Frisbee flight dynamics, lift in porous material and brain traumatic injury. He is an active member of APS (DFD), ASEE, ASME and AGMA and reviewer for several ASME, IEEE and ASEE, FIE conferences and journals.
He has been an active member of the Mechanics Division and Mechanical Division since 2006. Starting as a member at large in the Mechanics Division he was the Chair of the division in 2012-2013. He has also been active with the Mechanical Engineering Division and is the Chair of the division in 2021-2022. He is also been an active member of Engineering Technology Division, Computer in Education, Education Research Methods, Multidisciplinary Engineering, Experimentation and Laboratory-Oriented Studies Division and Systems Engineering. He is currently nominated as a Program Evaluator for ABET.
