Growing up, Kristina Ropella always liked math and science. When Ropella was looking at colleges, her mom brought home a brochure for Marquette University’s biomedical engineering program. Ropella was hooked. The summer after her junior year at Marquette, she interned at a company that produced medical electronic equipment. “I really enjoyed working side by side with physicians thinking about how to use technology to make health care better for people,” Ropella says. 

A few years and additional degrees later, Ropella teaches rising biomedical engineers in the same department that educated her. She was the first woman to achieve the rank of full professor in Marquette’s Opus College of Engineering, the first female department chair in the college, and the first female engineering dean at the institution.

Along with bringing diversity to her place of work, Ropella is committed to diversifying the field as a whole – not only in gender and race, but in thoughts and ideas. “A big part of engineering is being innovative, and in order to do that, you need people with a lot of diverse experiences,” she says. 

She’s the founder of Marquette’s E-Lead program, a 10-year-old leadership development curriculum that prepares students with “soft skills” they need to lead others in their future careers. The program – which is based on leadership best practices and research – started for engineering students only, but it was so successful it’s been brought Marquette-wide. Ropella says this multidisciplinary approach equips students to work alongside people in other fields, like they will in their careers.  

So far, E-Lead has nurtured nearly 250 students, many of whom have gone on to lead large companies or start businesses of their own. “I get to be part of so many young lives who are going to go out in the world and lead,” Ropella says. “I hope what I’m doing is helping develop young minds to take risks, be comfortable with change, and bring together diverse people.”

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