Maverick Engineering Social Media

Faculty Profile

Jamie Rogers – Engineering Engineering Education

Education comes first to Jamie Rogers. You can tell it by her history of personal involvement and her rapport with students.

Dr. Rogers earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering in 1979 from the University of Missouri at Columbia and joined Texas Instruments in Dallas as a methods engineer, designing assembly methods, workstations and facility layouts for manufacturing various military products. At the same time, she was studying for her master’s degree, taking night courses at UT Arlington. She received a master’s degree in 1981.

She continued to hold positions of increasing responsibility at Texas Instruments while also continuing her studies, this time for a doctorate, which she received in 1985. At Texas Instruments, she attained the position of project management and documentation manager for the 0.5uM Product Development Program in TI’s semiconductor group. Her duties required visits to plants worldwide, where she coordinated the marketing, design, process, testing, equipment, materials and facilities required to produce a new line of memory and logic devices.

“I was fortunate to have made lifelong friends with people from all over the world during my graduate education at UT Arlington,” she said. “These experiences helped me to develop an understanding, appreciation and respect for cultural differences and to enjoy my trips abroad.”

Dr. Rogers’ cohorts at TI frequently commented on the inability of new hires just out of college to grasp the productive and adaptive requirements of working in a commercial atmosphere. She suggested to her associates that, if they wanted the students to be properly prepared, they should become adjunct faculty at local universities with engineering programs and teach what the students needed to know. Most didn’t, but she did, beginning at UT Arlington in 1991.

By 1994, Dr. Rogers realized that her interests in education exceeded those of the corporate world, so she left TI to become an assistant professor here when the Industrial & Manufacturing Systems Engineering Department, chaired at that time by Dr. G. T. Stevens, offered her the position. She hasn’t looked back.

“As a practicing engineer for more than 14 years before becoming a fulltime faculty member, I was fortunate to develop a broad base of industrial experience that provides balance to my classroom and research activities. I continue to communicate actively with industry, government and academia to enhance this valuable perspective.”

Professional development has been a hallmark of Dr. Rogers’ teaching career. She became a member of several professional organizations, including the Institute of Industrial Engineers, the American Society for Engineering Education, the American Association of University Women, Tau Beta Pi, Alpha Pi Mu, Omega Rho, Omicron Delta Kappa and Sigma Xi. Since 1992, she has served as an industrial engineering program evaluator for the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), a member of the Engineering Accreditation Commission from 1999-2004 and a board member of ABET since 2008.

Dr. Rogers received tenure and promotion to associate professor in 1999 and became associate department chair of IMSE in 2003. While fulfilling these professional obligations, Dr. Rogers also found time to become a registered Professional Engineer in the state of Texas. “I have always enjoyed my career as an engineer and it is important to me to give something back to the profession,” she said.

During her teaching career, Dr. Rogers has supervised 23 Ph.D. students and is currently working with an additional nine. She teaches several courses in the area of manufacturing systems design and logistics, oversees the undergraduate capstone senior design projects and is the graduate advisor for students in the master’s-level logistics program. She has published and presented dozens of papers worldwide. In 1999, she received the UT System’s Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Dr. Rogers is a co-primary investigator on a recently awarded National Science Foundation grant titled “Engineering Sustainable Engineers.” This cross-disciplinary program involving civil engineering, electrical engineering and industrial engineering faculty and students is designed to improve students’ knowledge of and competency in addressing sustainability issues in engineering design and problem solving.

In addition to working with college students, Dr. Rogers has also participated in the Engineering and Computer Science Summer Camp programs since they began, conducting hands-on demonstrations for elementary, junior high and senior high school students. “I enjoy working with these potential engineering students,” she said. “I try to interest young people in engineering as a career and let them know that industrial engineering is fun. And, besides, I learn as much from them as they do from me.”