Mental health is not just the absence of mental illness but a mental state in which engineers can effectively cope with stress, realize their potential, and contribute to society.

Sarah A. Wilson, Ph.D., P.E.

Call me: Dr. Wilson
Pronouns: she/her/hers (Why this matters?)

Associate Professor and Chair
Experiential Engineering Education Department
Rowan University

wilsonsa@rowan.edu

Who am I?

Dr. Sarah Wilson (she/her) is an Associate Professor of Experiential Engineering Education at Rowan University. She earned her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Rowan University and her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts. In 2015, she joined the University of Kentucky as a teaching faculty member in Chemical Engineering, where she taught across the undergraduate curriculum and led the undergraduate unit operations laboratory. In 2021, she transitioned to a tenure-track faculty position, expanding her focus on undergraduate engineering education into a research program centered on engineering student mental health and well-being. Dr. Wilson is a nationally recognized educator, receiving awards including the ASEE Ray W. Fahien Award, the Tau Beta Pi Outstanding Teaching Award, and the Provost Outstanding Teaching Award. She is also actively engaged in professional service through leadership roles with the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).

Dr. Wilson’s research focuses on mental health, well-being, and student success in engineering. Her work examines how engineering culture and educational environments shape students’ experiences of mental health, help seeking, and belonging, including how cultural expectations surrounding performance, productivity, endurance, and self-reliance are communicated and reinforced within engineering education. She uses quantitative, qualitative, and participatory research methods to understand these experiences and partner with students in identifying opportunities for change. Increasingly, her work considers how responsibility for supporting mental health can extend beyond individual students to the relationships, educational practices, support structures, and institutional environments that make up the broader engineering ecosystem. She has contributed to the development of an NSF-funded Engineering Wellness Center and led the development and implementation of mental health programming that has reached thousands of students.

As an educator, Dr. Wilson is committed to creating inclusive, student-centered learning environments that support both rigorous learning and student well-being. Her teaching integrates fundamental engineering concepts with hands-on, real-world applications while emphasizing teamwork, communication, and reflection. She is particularly interested in how educational environments can help students develop sustainable approaches to challenge, collaboration, and success. Across her research and teaching, her work is guided by the principle: “We can’t design better systems until we care about the people inside them.”

Pathway to engineering

Dr. Wilson grew up in Pennsylvania and is a true Philadelphia sport’s fan. She spent much of her childhood dancing before discovering a passion for math and chemistry that led her to majoring in chemical engineering at Rowan University. Even though she didn’t initially know what chemical engineering was, she quickly fell in love with its creative, open-ended problem solving and the excitement of finding multiple solutions to complex challenges.

Outside the classroom

When shes not teaching, Dr. Wilson enjoys cooking, crocheting, reading, going to the gym, and training in aerial silks, sling, and lyra. She also spends time in her vegetable garden and at home with her two cats, Ivy and Charlie.

Advice for students

Dr. Wilson’s favorite part of her work is getting to know students and watching them grow into confident engineers and problem solvers. Her biggest piece of advice to students is to embrace being a learner: “Engineers often feel pressure to always know the answer—but real growth comes from getting comfortable with not knowing, asking questions, and learning how to problem-solve with support.”