Rochelle Kay Young

Rochelle Young is a professor of practice and director of the operations management program in the School of Professional Studies. She was introduced to Operations Management while serving in the military. She served as chief of operations for communication-electronic systems to include voice, radio, and security systems. Rochelle also served as chief of communications operations as a member of a joint task force in Honduras, where the focus was based in satellite communication to ensure each branch of the service was able to communicate within their particular branch.

Rochelle resigned her commission from the Air Force to pursue a PhD in Engineering Management with a focus on systems engineering for technology and society. Her research interests are based on exploring and documenting individual behaviors in multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural environments. These environments include addressing “Globalization” and “Sustainability and Development” in areas from water distribution policies to leadership issues abroad. Her goal was to develop a model by which the experience and expertise of technology implementation and management was made unconditionally available to all members and aspects of the organization and society. She used this approach to chair or serve as a member on 18 doctoral and master thesis committees. She also provided a mini course in qualitative research methods to a group of engineering doctoral candidates in Vienna, Austria.

Rochelle has served universities in many roles to include appointments to the Human Subject Review Board (also known as the Institutional Review Board) representing engineering; Faculty Advisor for the student chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE); and as community and outreach speaker for various groups on topics pertaining to minorities and women in engineering and global responsibility.