Pitt Professor Susan Fullerton Selected for Drexel University’s ELATES 2025 – 2026 Cohort
Susan Fullerton, associate professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, has been selected for Drexel University’s prestigious, intensive 2025 – 2026 Executive Leadership in Academic Technology, Engineering, and Science (ELATES) cohort. Launched in 2012, ELATES helps women faculty in STEM fields develop leadership skills and move into institutional leadership positions.
“I am honored to be among the 2025 – 2026 ELATES fellows and to have this opportunity to meet and learn from other amazing educators. I’m excited to share the work we’ve done here at the Swanson School and to gain the skills that will help me promote innovative learning models across the university.”
Throughout the year-long fellowship program, faculty and administrators from across the U.S. and Canada receive training and grow professional networks both virtually and during in-residence sessions. In addition to building their leadership skills, ELATES fellows will develop an institution-wide project that seeks to advance STEM education.
“Susan is an ideal addition to the 2025 – 2026 ELATES cohort,” said Mary Besterfield-Sacre, Nickolas A. DeCecco Professor of Industrial Engineering and senior associate dean for academic affairs. “In her teaching, research, mentorship, and work to innovate engineering education, she is leader who has made such a difference in the Swanson School and across the broader Pitt community. Susan joins a group of remarkable engineering professors who have also been ELATES fellows.”
Fullerton, who is also the Bicentennial Board of Visitors Faculty Fellow and her department’s Vice Chair of Education, joins other Swanson School professors who participated in ELATES including Lisa Maillart (industrial), Melissa Bilec (civil & environmental), Anne Robertson (mechanical & materials science), and Judy Yang (chemical & petroleum).
“Too often at universities, there are amazing, innovative programs and initiatives—but they’re siloed in different departments or schools,” said Fullerton. “Through my experience as an ELATES fellow, I hope to develop skills that will help me institutionalize a model of personalized education across Pitt and to other universities.”
Fullerton experienced the tangible effects of the ELATES program as she was becoming a tenured professor. During 2013 – 2014, Pitt’s Anne Robertson, Distinguished Service Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Associate Dean for Faculty Development, was an ELATES fellow, and she developed the School’s Center for Faculty Excellence to ensure that early-career faculty can access the support needed to achieve tenure.
Fullerton came to Pitt in 2015 and earned tenure in 2020, and she credits the mentoring she received through the Center as vital. “Anne’s initiative has been transformative across the Swanson School of Engineering,” Fullerton said. “It’s been so valuable to have tenured faculty providing consistent mentorship to junior faculty.”
In 2023, Fullerton received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to develop a personalized approach to graduate education. With co-principal investigators Besterfield-Sacre (who is also the director of the Engineering Education Research Center [EERC]), April Dukes (faculty and future Faculty Program Director, EERC ), and Götz Veser (Nickolas A. DeCecco Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering), she has created a model that helps students identify their unique pathways and access the resources they need to thrive.
Engineering graduate students can pursue tracks specific to their goals, whether entrepreneurial (led by Chris Wilmer, associate professor of chemical and petroleum engineering and Wellington C. Carl Faculty Fellow); industrial (led by Veser); or academic (led by James McKone, associate professor of chemical engineering and graduate director). Students then receive important mentorship that will better prepare them for their careers after graduation.
Students can also take stackable, one-credit modules that retain the rigor and foundational knowledge of graduate-level engineering studies while allowing them, earlier in the program, to pursue their passion.
“When I came to the Swanson School,” Fullerton said, “faculty were already working on this effort to make engineering education more uniquely focused on the individual student. The NSF grant pushed these efforts forward, and today the model, as we validate the results, is poised for wider dissemination.”