Three Missouri S&T faculty will serve as University of Missouri System Presidential Engagement Fellows during the 2020-21 academic year. The faculty members will serve as ambassadors in the region and speak to local organizations and communities about their areas of research and expertise. There is no cost for an organization or individual to host a speaker.

Dr. J. David Rogers is the Karl F. Hasselmann Missouri Chair in Geological Engineering at S&T. Rogers is an expert in the geoforensics of dam, levee and slope stability failures, flood control and fluvial geomorphology, the Mississippi Delta, and site characterization for seismic site response. He is available to discuss various topics related to the evolution of flood control practice, dam and levee failures, landslide dams, the Hoover Dam, the Panama Canal and the Tennessee Valley Authority, among other geological topics.

Dr. David Westenberg, associate professor of biological sciences at S&T, has lead several series of interactive workshops for area children and the general public, as well as K-12 teachers, to show the importance of synthetic biology and its role in everyday life. Westenberg is also past chair of the American Society for Microbiology Committee for K-12 Outreach. His research interests include antibacterial materials, microbiology education and rhizosphere microbiology. He is available to speak on any of these topics or lead K-12 workshops.

Dr. Guirong (Grace) Yan is an assistant professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at S&T. Yan is director of the Wind Hazards Mitigation Laboratory (WHAM) at the university, where she conducts research into wind hazard mitigation and computational fluid dynamics, structural health monitoring, damage detection and more. She’s built two small-scale tornado simulators that use models to mimic the destruction of high-speed twisters and hopes to build a larger-scale simulator at S&T. She is available to speak about structural health and damage detection, resilient infrastructural systems, smart materials, bridge engineering, and wireless sensor networks.

To request a Missouri S&T Presidential Engagement Fellow speaker at an event, visit umsystem.edu/forms/pef-speaking-request-form.

About Missouri University of Science and Technology

Founded in 1870 as the University of Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy, Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) is a STEM-focused research university of over 8,000 students and part of the four-campus University of Missouri System. Located in Rolla, Missouri, Missouri S&T offers 99 different degree programs in 40 areas of study, including engineering, the sciences, business and information technology, the humanities, and the liberal arts. Missouri S&T is known globally and is highly ranked for providing a high return on tuition investment, exceptional career opportunities for graduates, and an emphasis on applied, hands-on learning through student design teams and cooperative education and internship opportunities. For more information about Missouri S&T, visit mst.edu.