This semester was filled with in-person classes using masks and social distancing and online learning through Zoom classes. The Engineering Department shined a little light into the lives of its faculty and staff members with a social media series termed “Meet Your Engineering Professor”
Here is a summary of this series.
Dr. Miguel Abrahantes
- How long have you been teaching at Hope? 16 years
- What is your favorite course to teach? Electronics
- What are some of your hobbies outside of work? Traveling, gardening, swimming
- What is an interesting or unknown fact about you? I am from Cuba and I lived in Argentina during my graduate studies and I came to the U.S. as a refugee. I hold 3 citizenships and carry 3 passports: Cuban, Spaniard and American!
Dr. Jeffrey Christians
- How long have you been teaching at Hope? 3 years
- What is your favorite course to teach? Fluid Mechanics
- What are some of your hobbies outside of work? Running, Fishing, Watching Basketball (I like playing too but am not what one would call “good”)
- What is an interesting or unknown fact about you? I can (or I used to be able to…. I’m medium old now) do a barrel roll on a tube being pulled behind a boat. With my brother and cousins, we spent a lot of time on the water during summers at my parent’s cottage on Cowden Lake, North of Rockford, MI.
Prof. Susan Ipri-Brown
- How long have you been teaching at Hope? 7 years
- What is your favorite course to teach? Mechanics of Materials Labs
- What are some of your hobbies outside of work? Volunteering, cooking, exciting kids about engineering
- What is an interesting or unknown fact about you? I have an identical twin sister.
Dr. John Krupczak
- How long have you been teaching at Hope? 26 years
- What is your favorite course to teach? Hard to say, they are all my favorite!
- What are some of your hobbies outside of work? I have been doing work on our house lately and I enjoy getting out to the beaches.
- What is an interesting or unknown fact about you? Our cat Sophie likes to watch zoom meetings.
Dr. Michael Misovich
- How long have you been teaching at Hope? 18 years
- What is your favorite course to teach? Too many to choose! Process Calcs, Separations I, Chem E Design are all favorites
- What are some of your hobbies outside of work? Walking, hiking, traveling
- What is an interesting or unknown fact about you? At different times and places in my life, I have lived on a street where George Washington had marched (in the 1770s, I wasn’t there) and where Martin Luther King marched (in 1966, I was there).
Dr. Brooke Odle
- How long have you been teaching at Hope? 2 years
- What is your favorite course to teach? Engineering Computing
- What are some of your hobbies outside of work? Cooking and Baking
- What is an interesting or unknown fact about you? I participated in a study abroad program (at Tec de Monterrey in Mexico) as an undergrad. It was one of the best experiences of my undergraduate studies.
Adam Peckens
- How long have you been at Hope? 6 years as the department lab director
- What is your favorite course to teach? Geotech Labs or Intro to CAD Labs
- What are some of your hobbies outside of work? Hobby Farming/Homesteading, kayaking, backpacking, making maple syrup in the spring
- What is an interesting or unknown fact about you? I Hiked the Appalachian Trail. All of it. From Georgia to Maine, ~2,200 miles in five months.
Dr. Courtney Peckens
- How long have you been at Hope? 8 years
- What is your favorite course to teach? Steel Design because I get to use real world design problems that I encountered when working in this area in industry.
- What are some of your hobbies outside of work? vegetable gardening, kayaking, hiking
- What is an interesting or unknown fact about you? In the past three months, we added 2 Mini Silky Fainting goats and 11 chickens to our “farm”.
Dr. Katie Polasek
- How long have you been teaching at Hope? 10 years
- What is your favorite course to teach? I like them all but maybe Rehabilitation Engineering since I get to talk about all of my passions!
- What are some of your hobbies outside of work? I play hockey (or did before the pandemic). I also like doing puzzles and kayaking.
- What is an interesting or unknown fact about you? I started fostering kittens this summer and have our second litter of three with us now.
Dr. Matt Smith
- How long have you been teaching at Hope? 9 years
- What is your favorite course to teach? Statics (of course!)
- What are some of your hobbies outside of work? Playing sports with my kids, gardening, fantasy baseball, and trying out new foods
- What is an interesting or unknown fact about you? My dad is a veterinarian and I got to help out a lot around the clinic when I was a kid including, on multiple occasions, rubbing down puppies just born by cesarean section.