Dr. Kristina Ropella, Opus dean of Engineering, has received a pair of honors. Ropella has been awarded the 2016 Outstanding Dean Award from The Kern Family Foundation, and has been named 2016 Engineer of the Year by STEM Forward.

The Foundation award was presented at the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN) National Conference in Jacksonville, Florida. STEM Forward presented the award to Ropella during its annual Engineers Week Banquet in February in Milwaukee.

KEEN
Marquette is one of 29 partner institutions in KEEN collaborating to develop best practices in engineering education and to champion the entrepreneurial mindset in undergraduate engineering students.

“We want to publicly acknowledge your exceptional leadership, both at Marquette University and within KEEN,” the foundation said in a statement. “We hope that others will be inspired by your successes and your commitment to building a strong network dedicated to instilling the entrepreneurial mindset in engineering students.”

Membership in KEEN gives Marquette unparalleled access to resources for faculty education, tools for enhancing the engineering curriculum, and a network of schools that share their values and goals for fostering an entrepreneurial mindset within its students.

STEM Forward
The Milwaukee-based nonprofit organization cited Ropella for focusing her research and teaching career on biosignal processing, bioinstrumentation and medical imaging. It also lauded her for developing clinical applications of functional magnetic resonance imaging, including presurgical planning and evaluation of rehabilitative outcomes after injury or pathology.

The Engineer of the Year award has been a tradition since the 1950s, given to a remarkable person who has made an extraordinary contribution to the engineering profession.