Melodie Lawton

Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering

Melodie Lawton joins the faculty as an assistant professor, instructional track, with industrial experience that complements her academic credentials.

After getting her BS in chemical engineering at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, Lawton worked for Bausch & Lomb in Rochester as a process engineer. During seven years with the vision care company she gained a wide range of experiences in mentoring and training lab personnel, supervising daily process engineering lab activities, troubleshooting inconsistencies between manufacturing sites, and worked on the development of new ophthalmic medical devices.

Lawton’s professional experience as an engineer provides her with a broad perspective in helping students with coursework and professional development activities as well as instilling concepts that will be useful over the course of their careers.

As an instructional faculty member in charge of the department’s undergraduate labs, she teaches Chemical Engineering Practice to juniors, Chemical Process Analysis, and senior undergraduate labs.

For her PhD at Syracuse University, Lawton worked on development of smart shape memory polymer composites.

• Undergraduate degree: BSc, chemical engineering, Polytechnic University (Brooklyn, New York)
• Graduate degrees: MSc, materials science and engineering, Rochester Institute of Technology; PhD, bioengineering, Syracuse University (2018)
• Most recent appointment: visiting assistant professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, and faculty associate, Department of Chemical Engineering, Bucknell University