Summer 2007

New Academic Department Heads Assume Duties

Two Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology faculty members have been selected as new academic department heads.

Anice Anderson has been named head of the Department of Engineering Management and Michael Mueller has been selected as the new head of the Department of Chemistry.

The Department of Engineering Management offers a master’s degree in engineering management and an undergraduate minor in entrepreneurship as well as popular electives that provide management and entrepreneurial skills for the engineer and scientist. Anderson succeeds Prof. Tom Mason, who directed the creation of the department in 1995, and has served as its only department head. Mason will return to full-time teaching in engineering management and economics following a sabbatical during the 2007-08 academic year.

Anderson joined the Rose-Hulman faculty in 2004 as associate professor of engineering management. She teaches courses in organizational management, supply chain management, entrepreneurship, introduction to engineering management, integrated project, graduate seminar and multidisciplinary entrepreneurship design. Prior to joining the Rose-Hulman faculty, Anderson taught at Arizona State University and gained extensive industrial and managerial experience in the United States and internationally with Honeywell International, Boeing Corporation, Raytheon, United Parcel Service and other companies.

For the past several years, she coordinated national symposia on homeland security technologies. Anderson presented the first symposium on engineering entrepreneurship at the American Association for the Advancement of Science national meeting.

Anderson earned the Ph.D. in industrial engineering from Arizona State University.

Mueller, associate professor of chemistry, has been a member of the Rose- Hulman faculty since 1990. He teaches courses in general chemistry, physical chemistry, chemistry honors, quantum chemistry and molecular spectroscopy, undergraduate research and advanced physical chemistry. Mueller is currently working with undergraduate students on a research project to test a new renewable resourcebased two-cycle engine oil. He said the project is at the cutting edge of fuel technology because it is using a biodiesel as a two-cycle engine oil additive. Mueller is being assisted on the project by Pat Cunningham, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Rose-Hulman.

Before joining the Rose-Hulman faculty, Mueller taught in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of a textbook titled, “Quantum Chemistry with Molecular Spectroscopy and Electronic Structure Computations.”

He earned the Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin, and the bachelor of science in chemistry from Texas A&M University at Kingsville.

Anderson and Mueller were chosen for the department head positions following nationwide searches.