Academic Advising
Dedicated support for your journey as an engineering student
Advisors assist with course selection and schedule changes, provide information about graduation requirements, and have a wealth of knowledge about opportunities and services available to students.
Whether you are a first-year student or in our graduate programs, we’re here to help!
Common First Year Advisors
First-year students entering the College in the fall have a dedicated advising team. We’re located in the Don and Susie Law Engineering Success Center in the Scott Bioengineering Building.
Phone
Email
Find us on campus
Kayla Cothrun
she/her
Lead Advisor
Erin Meier
she/her
Academic Advisor
Claudia Hernandez
she/her
Academic Advisor
Advising Resources
Here you will find your study plan for each major, and the first year advising syllabus. Study plans are a general guideline of what classes a student might take for their major, every student’s journey is different.
Common First Year Faculty
Meet the faculty teaching your first-year courses this fall
There’s nothing more exciting for faculty than helping students discover the possibilities in engineering, and that’s exactly what the common first-year experience is about.
Between his towering height and transformative teaching, Baker is truly impossible to miss.
Dan Baker
Baker is a beloved presence at CSU, where he has spent years guiding second-year engineering students through the foundational challenges of Statics and Dynamics courses. Widely regarded as a master teacher (and the recipient of CSU’s prestigious “Best Teacher” award), Baker is celebrated for engaging teaching strategies and his fierce advocacy for students. Those lucky enough to land in his class leave not only more confident in their abilities, but also deeply inspired by the real-world impact of an engineering education. He’ll join the common first year team in Spring 2026, after he and his family return from their Semester at Sea voyage this fall.
When she’s not wrangling nanoparticles or empowering future engineers, you can find her scouting out new trails, tending to her gardens and perfecting her coffee pour-over technique.
Bailey Banach
Banach (that’s BAH-nack, rhymes with panic) is a new assistant professor joining us after earning her Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Kansas. Her research explores the intersection of immunoengineering and nanotechnology. She got her Ph.D. discovering, designing and optimizing antibody-protein based therapeutics and has contributed to a number of immune-engineering research projects in her career. Before joining CSU, Banach helped establish a new cutting-edge immune engineering lab at KU and even dipped her toes into the world of biotech venture capital, helping translate big scientific ideas into real-world solutions for food- and agriculture-enabling biotechnology. Originally from Ames, Iowa, she is passionate about making STEM more inclusive and continues to mentor emerging entrepreneurs and underrepresented founders.
Grier once led students through an escape-room-style final project that challenged teams to build hardware-meets-software puzzles using MATLAB.
Ben Grier
Grier brings energy, creativity and a flair for innovation to CSU’s first-year engineering classrooms. Known for turning lectures into launchpads and assessments into adventures, literally. Grier once led students through an escape-room-style final project that challenged teams to build hardware-meets-software puzzles using MATLAB. Before joining CSU, he taught in the first-year engineering program at The Ohio State University as faculty, developed cutting-edge hypersonic simulation tools as a research associate and earned his Ph.D. from Clemson, where his work focused on CFD code verification. A champion of flipped classrooms and hands-on learning, Grier creates spaces where every student feels like an engineer from day one. Off campus, he’s an avid cyclist, board game strategist, and hockey enthusiast, but in the classroom, he’s the one making the power plays.
Her classroom is a place where curiosity thrives, questions are welcome, and sometimes, if you’re the lucky one, you might even spot a dog photo or two on the slides.
Tierney Harvey
Harvey has made a career out of helping students and stray dogs find their place in this world. Before joining CSU, she led first-year engineering programs at the University of Oklahoma and the University of Central Oklahoma, where she became known for designing courses that demystify engineering while building student confidence and community. With a Ph.D. from Duke and a bachelor’s from the University of Virginia, Harvey brings both academic rigor and a big heart to her work. Whether she’s coordinating STEM outreach for K–12 students or mentoring freshmen through their first 3D modeling glitch, Harvey is all-in on student success. Her classroom is a place where curiosity thrives, questions are welcome, and sometimes, if you’re the lucky one, you might even spot a dog photo or two on the slides.
Torres brings a catalytic energy to engineering education, and is passionate about helping students spark connections across science and engineering disciplines.
Chris Torres
Torres brings a catalytic energy to engineering education, combining research excellence with a deep commitment to student success. Fresh from his Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Washington and a Ph.D. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Torres is passionate about helping students spark connections across science and engineering disciplines. As a former Alfred P. Sloan Scholar and NSF Graduate Research Fellow, he also spent time igniting curiosity in the next generation through his work with the St. Elmo Brady Academy, a STEM outreach program for K–12 students. Additionally, Torres has spent time teaching polymer chemistry to first-year undergraduates in Mexico and high school algebra for continuing education to incarcerated adults in the Southwestern United States. At CSU, Torres is ready to utilize his unique teaching experiences and background to accelerate the reaction chemistry between the classroom and the lives and aspirations of his students as they go on to impact their community and world at-large through groundbreaking engineering applications.
At CSU, he mentors students not just to solve technical problems, but to build something the world might actually need and is willing to purchase.
Bert Vermeulen
Bert Vermeulen is where engineering design meets entrepreneurial spark. At CSU, he mentors senior design teams not just to solve technical problems, but to build something the world might actually need and is willing to purchase. Through his leadership, a growing number of students are transforming their capstone projects into real startups, complete with business plans, prototypes and venture funding. From biodegradable plastic recyclers to off-road motorcycle innovations, Vermeulen helps students connect their technical skills with market realities, pushing them to ask not only “can we build it?” but “who cares, and why?” Outside of CSU, he writes patents and designs folding bicycles. His career has taken him to all seven continents.
Advising for Undergraduate
Returning and Transfer Students
After the common first-year courses, students work with academic advisors housed in their department office for specific majors.
