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. He was elected President of the
Rowan University Senate in 2006 then became the Interim Associate Provost for
Academic Affairs in July of 2007. In
2009, he became the permanent Associate Provost
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, Austria, Australia,
Argentina, 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. In 2005, he received the 2005 William
Corcoran Award for the best paper in Chemical
Engineering Education (along with co-authors Kevin
Dahm, Roberta Harvey, and Heidi Newell).
Dr. Newell is an avid baseball fan (who
has discovered a love of the Phillies after years as a suffering Pirates fan),
and reader (anything but westerns or romance novels) whose favorite book is
John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany.
He enjoys spending time with his wife, Heidi, daughter Jessica and their three
cats (Dakota, Bindi, and Smudge). Dr. Newell is active in a Strat-o-Matic Baseball League in which he and three friends drafted
teams in 1901 and have been playing them through time. He also has a semi-regular game of Texas Hold’em with various faculty and administrators.