Dr. Jenna Carpenter

Dr. Jenna Carpenter is Founding Dean and Professor of Engineering at Campbell University, leading development of an innovative, hands-on, project-based engineering program. Her research focuses on innovative STEM curricula and the success of women in STEM. As a national expert, she has a TEDx talk, “Engineering: Where are the girls and why aren’t they here?” and has been invited to national STEM events including The White House Science Fair and The White House Champions for Change. Carpenter contributed to the National Academies 2017 report on the NSF ERC Program, ”A New Vision for Center-Based Engineering Research”. In 2015, Dream box Learning named her one of ten “Women in STEM Who Rock,” the only academic among a list of CEOs, politicians and actresses. She received the 2019 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Sharon Keillor Award for Women in Engineering Education. She is on the Executive Committee of the Global Engineering Deans Council and co-chair of the US Engineering Deans Council Undergraduate Experience Committee. An ABET Program Evaluator and an ASEE Fellow, she will be ASEE President-Elect starting in July 2021. She is past ASEE Vice President of Professional Interest Councils and past Chair of the ASEE Long-Range Planning Committee. She served for seven years as Steering Committee Chair for the National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenge Scholars Program and chaired the Pilot Program Ad-Hoc Committee for the Gulf Scholars Program for the National Academies. Carpenter is past First Vice-President of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), past chair of the MAA Council on the Profession, past co-chair of the US mathematical sciences societies Joint Committee on Women, and serves on the MAA Science Policy Committee. She is past President of the Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN)and received the WEPAN Founders Award and the WEPAN Distinguished Service Award.

Currently: Dean, School of Engineering, Campbell University

Formerly: Associate Dean, Undergraduate Studies, College of Engineering & Science, Louisiana Tech University.

Education: (1) 2017 – Institute for Management and Leadership in Education, Harvard, (2) 1989 – Ph.D. Mathematics, Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, (3) 1983 – B.S. Mathematics, Louisiana Tech University.