Dr. Kristina Ropella, Opus Dean of the Opus College of Engineering, was named the Groundbreaker honoree of the 2023 Betty Awards.
The Betty Awards is an annual event honoring Milwaukee Magazine’s founding publisher Betty Ewens Quadracci and recognizes maverick female leaders in our community. The fifth annual awards ceremony will be held Tuesday, Dec. 5, at 11:30 a.m. in the Saint Kate – The Arts Hotel. Tickets are available online.
Ropella joined the biomedical engineering faculty at Marquette in 1990 and served as the chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering from 2004 to 2013. She assumed the permanent role of Opus Dean in 2015. As dean, she provides vision and leads strategic planning and implementation, creation of academic programs, engagement with industry, government and other academic institutions, fundraising, and community outreach.
Ropella was the first woman to achieve the rank of full professor in the Opus College of Engineering, the first female department chair in the college and the first female engineering dean at Marquette.
She is the founder of Marquette’s E-Lead program, a three-year, curricular innovation leadership development program designed to prepare undergraduate students at Marquette to be innovation leaders in today’s changing world.
