Choose to Challenge: Hope Michelsen
Professor Hope Michelsen joined the CU Boulder faculty just over a year and a half ago. She is an associate professor in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering. Her research focuses on soot from flames and atmosphere and their effect on the environment.
She became passionate about this research in an unconventional way. While at Sandia National Laboratories, they told her that the only way she could have a lab was if she studied soot, research many others had dismissed.
“There have been many times that I have had a plan and hit a roadblock," she said. "Each time that’s happened, I have taken whatever opportunity was available, and it’s almost always worked out to be better than my original plan!”
Highlights
- Earned degrees from Dartmouth College and Stanford University
- Experiences at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Sandia National Labs and IBM
- Associate professor in mechanical engineering and environmental engineering
- Research focuses on soot and its effects on environment
- Encourages others to “imagine difficult people as characters in a sitcom” to cope with challenging situations
Prior to Sandia, when she was a postdoctoral researcher, she received a National Science Foundation fellowship to work at Harvard University. When she arrived at Harvard, however, her postdoctoral advisor told her that he could not support her to do research and suggested that she spend her postdoc reading papers. She switched groups and instead focused her time on modeling on atmospheric chemistry with an added bonus of working with great scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
There weren’t always roadblocks. When reflecting on the people who made a difference in her path to engineering, she immediately mentioned her academic advisor. She was one of the few women in her undergraduate engineering program at the time, and her advisor encouraged her to sign up for a machine shop class. The course was empowering and was her first step into engineering.
After graduation, she had experience working at Sandia and IBM, where she was again in a minority of women at the company. Throughout her time at the companies, she found support from her managers. This support has motivated her today as an educator who will encourage her students. She is involved with diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at CU, where she hopes to bring a more creative and healthier environment for the university.
A perspective that she wishes she had when entering STEM is “the world has a cultural perspective of you; when you don’t conform to expected roles, it’s uncomfortable for some people, and they may respond negatively.” She advises those in this situation to “imagine themselves in a sitcom. ... If you can laugh about it in any way, it makes you feel so much better.”
She says her favorite sitcom is Big Bang Theory, with her favorite character being Amy Farrah Fowler.
In addition to her research, she enjoys practicing yoga and hiking with her husband and two dogs, Rishi and Moksha.
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