Dr. Newell’s Bio-Sketch
Dr. Newell was born in Turtle Creek,
Pennsylvania (a suburb of Pittsburgh). He received his B. S. in Chemical and
Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1988, his M. S. in
Chemical Engineering from Penn State in 1990 and his Ph.D. in Chemical
Engineering from Clemson University in 1994. His dissertation focused on
the conversion of PBO to carbon fiber, and he received the American Carbon
Society's Mrozowski Award in 1993. After completing his doctorate, he
stayed on at Clemson for one year as a Visiting Assistant Professor before
accepting a tenure-track position at the University of North Dakota in
1995. He joined the Chemical Engineering faculty at Rowan as an Associate
Professor in 1998 and was promoted to Full Professor in 2004.
Dr. Newell has been published in Carbon, High Performance Polymers, The
Journal of Applied Polymer Science, The Journal of Reinforced Plastics and
Composites, The International Journal of Engineering Education, The Journal of
Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology Education and Chemical
Engineering Education. He has also coauthored a textbook chapter on
the spinning of carbon fiber precursors. His work has been presented at
several international conferences in Spain, England, and across the US.
In 1997, he was named as the Dow Outstanding New Faculty Member by the North
Midwest section of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). In
2001, he received the Ray Fahien Award from ASEE for contributions to Chemical
Engineering education. Along with Kevin
Dahm, he also received the 2001 Professional Interest Council Group III
(PIC-III) Best Paper Award at the 2001 ASEE conference in Albuquerque.
His
current research activities include examinations of structure-property
relationships in high-performance fibers, statistical modeling of compressive
and tensile failure using maximum likelihood theory, developing novel uses for
high-performance polymers as precursor materials. He is a member of the
American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and American Society for
Engineering Education (ASEE), where he serves as the Secretary/Treasurer of the
Chemical Engineering Division.
Dr.
Newell is an avid baseball fan (the Pirates will win again someday), and reader
(anything but westerns or romance novels). He enjoys spending time with
his wife, Heidi, daughter Jessica, their cat (Dakota) and two Guinea Pigs
(Sioux and Caramela). Heidi completed her Ph.D. in Educational
Administration at the University of North Dakota and spent a year as the
Assessment/Accrediation consultant for the Chemical Engineering Department at
UND as well as a Project Director for the Bureau of Educational Services and
Applied Research. She is currently employed as the Assessment Consultant
for the College of Engineering at Rowan.