Progress on the Engineering Ambassador Network: A Professional Development Organization with an Outreach Mission

Dr. Karen A. Thole holds a Bachelors of Science and Masters of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois, and a Doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin. After receiving her PhD, she spent two years as a post-doctoral researcher at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. Her academic career began in 1994 when she became an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1999, she accepted a position in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Virginia Tech where she was promoted to Professor in 2003 and was recognized as the William S. Cross Professor of Mechanical Engineering in 2005. In 2006, she was appointed and continues to hold the position of Head of the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Thole has published over 180 peer-reviewed archival journal and conference papers and advised over 50 theses and dissertations. She founded the Experimental and Computational Convection Laboratory (ExCCL) which is a Pratt and Whitney Center of Excellence for heat transfer. She is a Fellow of ASME and serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors for the International Gas Turbine Institute, as the Chair of the ASME ME Department Head Executive Committee, as a member of the Vision 2030 Committee, and as the Chair of ASME’s Committee on Honors. She has been recognized by the U.S. White House Champion of Change for recruitment efforts in STEM and by Penn State’s Rosemary Schraer Mentoring Award.