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Mary Anderson-Rowland is the PI of an NSF STEP grant to work with five
non-metropolitan community colleges to produce more engineers, especially female and underrepresented minority engineers. She also directs two academic scholarship programs, including one for transfer students. An Associate Professor in computing, informatics, and systems design engineering, she was the Associate Dean of Student Affairs in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU from 1993-2004. Anderson-Rowland was named a top 5% teacher in the Fulton Schools of Engineering for 2009-10. She received the WEPAN Engineering Educator Award 2009, ASEE Minorities Award 2006, the SHPE Educator of the Year 2005, and the National Engineering Award in 2003, the highest honor given by AAES. In 2002, she was named the Distinguished Engineering Educator by the Society of Women Engineers. She has more than 175 publications, primarily in the areas of recruitment and retention of women and underrepresented minority engineering and computer science students. Her awards are based on her mentoring of students, especially transfer, women, and underrepresented minority students, and her research in the areas of recruitment and retention. A SWE and ASEE Fellow, she is a frequent speaker on enhancing the transfer experience, career opportunities, and diversity in engineering.

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Prior to joining the ASU faculty in 1990, Armando A. Rodriguez worked at MIT, IBM, AT&T Bell Laboratories, and Raytheon Missile Systems. He has also consulted for Eglin Air Force Base, Boeing Defense and Space Systems, Honeywell, and NASA. He has published more than 200 technical papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings. He has authored three engineering texts. Rodriguez has given more than 70 invited presentations--13 plenary--at international and national forums, conferences and corporations. Since 1994, he has directed an extensive engineering mentoring-research program that has served more than 300 students. Rodriguez's research interests include control of nonlinear distributed parameter and sampled-data systems; modeling, simulation, animation, and real-time control (MoSART) of Flexible Autonomous Machines operating in an uncertain Environment (FAME); control of bio-economic systems, renewable resources, and sustainable development; and control of semiconductor, (hypersonic) aerospace, robotic, and low power electronic systems. Rodriguez has received the following honors: AT&T Bell Laboratories Fellowship; Boeing A.D. Welliver Fellowship; ASU Engineering Teaching Excellence Award; IEEE International Outstanding Advisor Award; White House Presidential Excellence Award for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring; and the Ralf Yorque Memorial Best Paper Prize. Rodriguez has also served on various national technical committees and panels. He is currently serving on the following National Academies panels: Survivability and Lethality Analysis, and Army Research Laboratory (ARL) Autonomous Systems. Personal website: http://aar.faculty.asu.edu/.

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Richard (Bubba) Hall is the Dean of Math, Science, and Health Science at Cochise College and PI of the NSF Cochise Community College METSTEP program. He is working closely with Arizona State University’s METS program and Office of Academic Partnerships to build transfer pathways for Cochise College engineering students to Arizona State. Under his supervision, Cochise College has developed an associate of science degree and associate of applied science degree in engineering, as well as introductory and programming courses for engineering. Hall also plays an important support role in the Running Start program, a college program that gives local high school students an opportunity to pursue an engineering degree at the beginning of their junior year. Most importantly, a team of math, science, and engineering instructors has been formed to help lead all engineering efforts. JoAnn Deakin, Feng Yang, Mark Gibson, and Kristy Ritter have all played important roles in the development of the engineering program at Cochise College.

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Phil McBride received a B.S. from the University of Arizona in 1986, a M.A.T. in 1989 from Northern Arizona University, and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Miami University in 2003. He taught high school in Northern Arizona for five years before moving to Eastern Arizona College in 1991 to teach chemistry. He was recognized by the EAC Student Association as the most admired faculty in 1993, received the Alumni Faculty Recognition Award in 1996, the Distinguished Service Award in 1997, and in 2008 received the Rocky Mountain Region College Educator Award for Excellence in Teaching by the American Chemical Society. For the past five years, he has served as Dean of Instruction, while continuing to teach at least one course each semester. Dr. Jack Bailey has played an important role in the development of the engineering program at Eastern Arizona Community College.

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Rakesh Pangasa is the PI of the Arizona Western College METSTEP program. After practicing as a scientist, researcher, and industrial R&D manager for 14 years at the Cement Research Institute of India serving cement, concrete, and construction industries, he immigrated to U.S. in 1986 and switched to teaching, training, and consulting. Since then, he
has been engaged in teaching mathematics, computer programming, engineering, and objectivism at Arizona Western College and has taught at all the three state universities in Arizona. He has also taught undergraduate and graduate students
in business administration, information systems, operations management, and strategic management for Northern Arizona University and for Webster University at their campuses in Yuma, Denver, Vienna, and
Shanghai. He has also worked as Commissioning Engineer for FLSmidth, training operators at a few plants
of American Electric Power, and as Senior Computer Systems Analyst for Yuma proving grounds on future combat systems software interoperability. In his efforts towards motivating high school students
to explore engineering, he has launched the first Yuma community robotic team for regional competition.
His research interests and passion include building strong relations amongst academics, research, and
industry. He earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Panjab University in 1971 and a Ph.D. in industrial engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi in 1986.

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John M. Saber is the PI of the Mohave Community College METSTEP program. He worked as a Russian translator in Berlin during the 1970s. He returned to the U.S. in 1976, and after a few years working in counter intelligence, he began work on his Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Upon graduation, he accepted a postdoctoral position at Los Alamos National Laboratories, working on space-based neutral particle beam guns and on x-ray lasers. In 1989, he joined Exxon Research and Development Labs in Baton Rouge. Having never lost the wanderlust he developed in Germany, he left Exxon after five years and opened dive operations, first in Honduras and later in Bali, Indonesia. While teaching dive math and physics in Bali, he was recruited to teach math at the National Campus of the College of Micronesia in Kolonia, Pohnpei, FSM. John again returned to the U.S. in the summer of 2008 to participate in the presidential elections that year. He taught calculus-based physics, statics, dynamics, materials, and developmental math at Central Lakes Community College in Brainerd, Minn. Having frozen to death several times during the next three years, he accepted employment at Mohave Community College in Kingman, Ariz. During his first semester there, he set up an A.S. program in engineering as part of METSTEP, and thoroughly enjoyed his first winter there. Introduction to Engineering was taught for the first time ever at Mohave in Spring 2012 by Saber with 10 students.

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Clark Vangilder is the PI of the Central Arizona Community College METSTEP program. Clark is a former Naval Nuclear Propulsion Plant Operator prior to receiving a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Grand Canyon University in 1995 and a master’s degree in physics from Arizona State University in 2004. Central Arizona College hired Clark in 2008 to take over the physics program, as well as resurrect the pre-engineering program in conjunction with two separate grant opportunities, one including the exploratory STEP grant that has evolved into METSTEP. In addition to the standard introductory design course which articulates to all three Arizona universities, Clark has created course sequences in MATLAB and Python, which also articulate. In the coming year, new curriculum and an associate’s degree will be drafted and submitted for approval. At the present time, Clark is also pursuing a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology in order to promote a new theory of learning, of his design.

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Anita E. Grierson has been the Director of the METS Center in the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering at ASU since 2008. Grierson has more 10 years corporate experience in program management, business development, and biomechanical engineering, with products as diverse as air bag systems for helicopters, body armor, and orthopedic implants. She received her
bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1990, her
master's degree in mechanical engineering from Northwestern University in 1994, and a master's in business administration from Arizona State University in 2000.

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