Exploring how values shape engineers’ commitment to “do good” has led enterprising engineering educator Marie Stettler Kleine, PhD, to contribute her expertise to Rose-Hulman as the newest alumni representative to the Institute’s Board of Trustees. Her three-year term as a trustee began during the recent fall 2024 meeting.

Kleine, a 2014 graduate who had a double major in mechanical engineering and international studies, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering, Design, & Society at Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. Kleine is lead faculty member of the college’s Engineering with Communities Design Studio. She also teaches humanitarian engineering, design, and science and technology studies at the undergraduate and graduate levels and conducts research on engineering practice and pedagogy, exploring its origins, purposes, and potential futures. Kleine was among a select group of engineering educators from across the country recognized as 2024 KEEN Engineering Unleashed Fellows by the Kern Family Foundation. 

“As an engineering educator, Marie brings valuable insight to the Board of Trustees as Rose-Hulman strives to remain on the leading edge of academic programs and initiatives in undergraduate engineering, science, and mathematics education, and provide our students with those skills necessary to make a difference in the world through contributions in their career fields,” said Rose-Hulman President Robert A. Coons. “Marie’s insights will be valuable as we begin to implement of our Advancing by Design strategic plan.”

Kleine’s interest in the professional formation of engineers includes attention to values and community engagement as well as innovation cultures and expertise. She co-edited “Does America Need More Innovators?” published by MIT Press in 2019, with colleagues Matthew Wisnioski and Eric Hintz. This project is unique in how it engages innovation’s champions, critics, and reformers in collaboration and shared visioning of the future. In the classroom, Kleine challenges engineers to critically engage in all facets of their work – a pursuit inspired by her time as a student at Rose-Hulman.

“I have strived to emulate those dedicated Rose-Hulman educators who inspired and encouraged me to follow in their footsteps as engineering professors with demanding principles and a clear focus on preparing students for careers of purpose and significance,” said Kleine, who was honored with Rose-Hulman’s Distinguished Young Alumni Award earlier this year.

Kleine and her husband, fellow 2014 Rose-Hulman electrical engineering alum Kaleb Kleine, both attended Virginia Tech for graduate school, cycled across the United States in 2018 as part of Bike the US for MS, and have since relocated to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. They’re always looking for their next adventure.