Sarah Ann Rajala is a retired American

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and engineering educator, the former dean of engineering at both

Mississippi State University Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a public land-grant research university adjacent to Starkville, Mississippi. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Unive ...

and

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the n ...

, a past president of the

American Society for Engineering Education The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) is a non-profit member association, founded in 1893, dedicated to promoting and improving engineering and engineering technology education. The purpose of ASEE is the advancement of education ...

, and a member of the National Academy for Engineering.

Education and career

Rajala came from a farming family in the

Upper Peninsula of Michigan The Upper Peninsula of Michigan – also known as Upper Michigan or colloquially the U.P. – is the northern and more elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; it is separated from the Lower Peninsula by t ...

. She earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from

Michigan Technological University Michigan Technological University (Michigan Tech, MTU, or simply Tech) is a public research university in Houghton, Michigan, founded in 1885 as the Michigan Mining School, the first post-secondary institution in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. ...

in 1974, the only women in her engineering class and the third female electrical engineering graduate at the university. She continued at

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...

for graduate study, earning a master's degree in 1977 and completing her Ph.D. in 1979. Her doctoral dissertation, ''Adaptive Nonlinear Image Restoration by a Modified Kalman Filtering Approach'', was supervised by Rui de Figueiredo. She joined the faculty of

North Carolina State University North Carolina State University (NC State) is a public land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina. Founded in 1887 and part of the University of North Carolina system, it is the largest university in the Carolinas. The universit ...

, becoming the first female faculty member in her department. She remained there for 27 years until moving in 2007 to Mississippi State University as chair of the electrical and computer engineering department and James Worth Bagley Chair of Engineering. In 2008 she became dean of engineering at Mississippi State, and in 2013 she moved again to become James L. and Katherine S. Melsa Dean of Engineering at Iowa State University. She retired in 2019. She served as president of the American Society for Engineering Education for 2008–2009. She has also chaired the Global Engineering Deans Council and the

ABET The ABET (incorporated as the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc.) is a non-governmental organization that accredits post-secondary education programs in applied and natural sciences, computing, engineering and engineering ...

Engineering Accreditation Council.

Recognition

Rajala was named a

Fellow of the IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

in 2001, "for contributions to engineering education". She became a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education in 2007, and a Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

in 2008; she is also an

Fellow. Rajala was the 2015 winner of the IEEE Harriett B. Rigas Award. In 2016 the

American Association of Engineering Societies The American Association of Engineering Societies (AAES) is an umbrella organization of engineering societies in the US, founded by a group of 43 societies in 1979. After several disputes, and a change in focus in the mid-1980s from speaking for t ...

named her national engineer of the year, "for her outstanding leadership at the institutional as well as at national and international levels impacting multiple engineering societies, her innovations in engineering education and assessment, and her tireless efforts to promote diversity in engineering". She won the 2017 IEEE Award for Meritorious Achievement in Accreditation Activities, and is the 2020 winner of the Sharon Keillor Award for Women in Engineering Education of the American Society for Engineering Education. In 2022, Rajala was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rajala, Sarah Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American electrical engineers American women engineers Michigan Technological University alumni Rice University alumni North Carolina State University faculty Mississippi State University faculty Iowa State University faculty Fellow Members of the IEEE Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows of the American Society for Engineering Education Presidents of the American Society for Engineering Education 21st-century American women