An Interview with Dr. Breigh Roszelle
Dr. Breigh Roszelle with her Faculty Career Champion award. (Photo by Mason Davis)
We recently spoke with Dr. Breigh Roszelle, Teaching Professor and Chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department at the Ritchie School of Engineering & Computer Science! In addition to teaching the Introduction to Engineering Design class for first-year engineering students, she also teaches mechanical engineering classes focusing on thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer.
Dr. Roszelle has been an outstanding mentor to students, so it was no surprise when she received the University of Denver's Faculty Career Champions award! The Faculty Career Champion is a student-nominated award that celebrates outstanding faculty mentors and the impact they make on students' career and professional development journeys.
What does winning the Faculty Career Champions Award mean to you?
One of the best aspects of working at DU is that I get to know our students well. When you can teach in smaller classes and have students multiple times, it allows you to really get to know them and have conversations about their future goals. It is very heartening to then see that students also appreciate these connections and feel that the mentorship and advice from faculty are beneficial to them in their future endeavors.
What’s your proudest “student success” story that came to fruition because of your mentorship?
This is an interesting question because I would never say that a student's success was due to my mentorship. However, I would hope that my relationship with them may have helped them along the way. I think my proudest moments are when I see students grow into their passions and truly find out what type of pathway works best for them. I often see students who start as engineering majors because they have a general idea of what an engineer does, and maybe they were told they were good at math, but they don't necessarily know what they want to do in the future. Seeing these students learn and grow in the classroom and start to understand where they can thrive in their careers is my favorite thing. So whether they end up being a design engineer, a lawyer, a teacher, or a research scientist, I know that they have found a path that suits them.
What’s your mentorship advice for students?
Trust your own motivations and do things because you understand how they will serve you. Often, students think they have to go down a certain career path because it is what is expected of them or because it seems like the "right" thing to do. There are so many opportunities for students with engineering degrees outside of the "standard" career path, and I really want students to be able to explore their options.
What’s one thing students would be surprised to learn about you?
I was a ballerina from ages 3 to 18, and so seeing how the worlds of art and science can be both disparate and collaborative has always been a passion of mine.
