Associate Dean for Research

Rosemarie Wesson, PhD, PE
Associate Dean for Research
Professor of Chemical Engineering

Dr. Rosemarie D. Wesson joined The Grove School of Engineering at The City College of New York as the Associate Dean for Research in August 2015 and brings a broad knowledge of diverse engineering fields to the School.

Dr. Wesson has over thirteen years of experience at the National Science Foundation in the Directorate for Engineering and excelled as both a Director and Program Director in the Foundation. As Acting Director of the Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) Office, Dr. Wesson was a member of the Engineering Leadership Team and led the EFRI office. As a Program Director at NSF she managed both small-business and academic research portfolios focused on energy, nanotechnology, emerging research opportunities and the field of chemical and biological separations. Dr. Wesson received the NSF Director’s awards for Collaborative Integration and the Director’s Award for Superior Accomplishment.

Dr. Wesson was a faculty member in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA. She has authored or co- authored numerous technical papers in the area of numerical analyses of polymer crystallization kinetics, structure property relationships of crystalline materials, and finite-element analyses of polymeric flows. Dr. Wesson was awarded both outstanding teaching and research awards at LSU. 

In industry Dr. Wesson worked as a Senior Research Leader in the Corporate Materials Science Research and Development Lab of Dow Chemical Company.  Dr. Wesson’s responsibilities included supervision and leadership in the polymer rheology research arena.  She led multiple teams of researchers in bench level, mini-plant, pilot plant and the production facilities resulting in significant cost savings for the Company.

Dr. Wesson has also led non-profit research.  As a Principal Researcher at the Battelle Memorial Institute she lead a team to research and manufacture the Odyssey Atlasphere®, which received an R&D 100 Award for one of the 100 most technologically significant new products of the year.

Dr. Wesson is an invited contributing author for the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) PRISM magazine.  The quarterly Discovery articles highlight timely and relevant engineering discoveries for national and international audiences.

Dr. Wesson is a Fellow in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).  She has held numerous leadership positions within AIChE.  She recently ended a three-year term on the AIChE Board of Directors and received the 2014 Minority Action Committee (MAC) Eminent Chemical Engineers Award for outstanding contributions to the minority chemical engineering community.  She is also a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE).

Dr. Wesson received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and her M.S. and Ph.D., both in Chemical Engineering, from The University of Michigan. Dr. Wesson is a registered Professional Engineer.

 

Educational Background

PhD & MS in Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan 

BS in Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Last Updated: 08/16/2016 18:17