Dr. Ashley Bernal's areas of expertise include design, materials and manufacturing, and she teaches introduction to design and humanitarian design courses. She also helped introduce the multidisciplinary Grand Challenges course, through which students address an aspect of one of the National Academy of Engineering's 14 global Grand Challenges. Dr. Bernal is a member of Faculty Without Borders, is the campus representative to the American Society of Engineering Education, and advisors the Global Outreach Club and Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society. A Rose-Hulman alumna, she holds the college's track and field record in the outdoor 200-meter dash.

Academic Degrees

  • PhD, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2011
  • BS, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, 2006

Awards & Honors

Research Experiences

  • Nanomanufacturing
  • Piezoelectrics
  • Optical measuring techniques for small scale displacement
  • Intercultural design

Select Publications & Presentations

  • Joenathan, C., Bernal, A., Woonghee, Y., Bunch, R. and Hakoda, C., “Dual-Arm Multiple-Reflection Michelson Interferometer for Large Multiple Reflections and Increased Sensitivity,” Optical Engineering, Vol. 55 (2), 2016
  • Joenathan, C., Sirohi, R. S. and Bernal, A., “Advances in Speckle Metrology,”Optics Encyclopedia, 2015
  • Joenathan, C., Li, Y., Oh, W., Bunch, R., Bernal, A. and Kirkpatrick, S., “White Light Lateral Shear Interferometer with Holographic Shear Lenses and Spatial Fourier Transform,” Optical Letters, Vol. 38 (22), 2013
  • Joenathan, C., Bernal, A. and Sirohi, R. S., “Spatially Multiplexed X-Y Lateral Shear Interferometer with Varying Shears Using Holographic Lens and Spatial Fourier Transform,” Applied Optics, Vol. 52 (22), 2013
  • Bassiri-Gharb, N., Bastani, Y. and Bernal, A., “Chemical Solution Growth of Ferroelectric Oxide Thin Films and Nanostructures,” Chemical Society Reviews, Vol. 43 (17), 2013
  • Bernal, A., Tselev, A., Kalinin, S. and Bassiri-Gharb, N., “Free-Standing Ferroelectric Nanotubes Processed via Soft-Template Infiltration,” Advanced Materials, Vol. 24 (9), 1,160-1,165, 2012
  • Simoni, M., Andrijcic, E., Kline, B. and Bernal, A., “Helping Undergraduate Students of any Engineering Discipline Develop a Systems Perspective,” International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) International Symposium, Edinburg, Scotland, United Kingdom, 2016

Teaching Interests

  • Statics and mechanics of materials
  • Materials engineering
  • Design for manufacturing
  • Capstone design
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