Join us in Welcoming Dr. Bonnie Roberts to the Department

We are delighted to welcome new instructor, Dr. Bonnie Roberts, to the Department of Mechanical Engineering faculty this fall. Her industry and teaching background, coupled with her professional achievements and passion for teaching will significantly impact and enhance our department, particularly our growing senior design program.

Shortly after earning her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in 2005, Dr. Roberts joined Applied Research Laboratories as an Engineering Scientist Associate. She also consulted for GE Energy on their aeroderivative gas turbine power generation systems. “My first design project after graduation was so rewarding. I was one of two mechanical engineers on the team, which meant I was an integral part of conceiving, designing, building, and demonstrating our prototype aquatic dynamic system for the Navy. I hope that all our recent graduates find such gratifying positions,” said Dr. Roberts.

In 2012, Dr. Roberts journeyed back to academia and in 2017, earned her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from The University of Texas at Austin. During her Ph.D. years, Dr. Roberts earned several awards including a NIST Fire Research Grant, and an NSF Fellowship: Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship.

Dr. Roberts’s teaching background began at The University of Texas at Austin where she was a summer lecturer for the Experimental Fluid Mechanics course. She then transitioned to an instructor position at the University of South Florida teaching Matlab Programming Concepts, Thermal Systems, and Numerical/Computational Methods. Her continued interest in teaching brought her to Colorado State University where this fall she is teaching MECH 201 Engineering Design I, and is an assistant teacher for MECH 486A Senior Design Practicum. “Everyone has been so welcoming and I’m very happy to be here. I’m looking forward to seeing the senior design teams I’m advising do well at their competitions in April.”

Dr. Roberts hopes to eventually integrate even more of her principal areas of interest into her teaching: thermal systems, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, building energy efficiency and sustainability, fire science, and combustion.

We are thrilled to have Dr. Roberts in our corner, and look forward to seeing her many future accomplishments unfold as part of the Department of Mechanical Engineering faculty at CSU.