For more than 25 years, Gretchen Hein, Ph.D., has served as a faculty member and Society of Women Engineers collegiate section advisor at Michigan Technological University. Dr. Hein earned a mechanical engineering degree at Kettering University, an M.S. in engineering at Purdue University, and a Ph.D. in environmental engineering at Michigan Tech.

After earning a bachelor’s degree, she worked as a project engineer for the General Motors Allison Gas Turbine Division. She served as an associate teaching professor in manufacturing and mechanical engineering at Michigan Tech, teaching first-year engineering courses, thermodynamics/fluid mechanics, heat transfer, and a thermal-fluids laboratory.

Dr. Hein has long been active in SWE and her passions are SWE advising and helping students learn. She is a former SWE Women in Academia chair and remains an active member. Dr. Hein served on the SWE Research Advisory Council and annually as a SWE undergraduate scholarship and awards reviewer. She has presented at many SWE annual and WE Local conferences and routinely encourages collegiate members to present.

Dr. Hein founded and is an advisor to a SWENext club at a low-income school in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, whose members have presented at three SWE annual conferences. This club participated and earned regional and national recognition for STEM accomplishments in eCYBERMISSION and the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium.

Dr. Hein’s research has focused on engineering education, and she has obtained research grants from the National Science Foundation and the Michigan Space Grant Consortium. She has served as an NSF reviewer, along with reviewing papers for journals and conferences. Her teaching and mentoring excellence has been recognized by student organizations, the university, and nationally. Her methods are known to be innovative and engaging. Her claim to fame is “Duck Day,” when she brought a duck to class as a fun way to demonstrate heat transfer (in a duck’s legs, arteries and veins exchange heat and are a countercurrent heat exchanger).

In 2022, approximately 300 students attended Duck Day and only half were from her classes. She is a facilitator for the #IamRemarkable program funded by Google, for which she holds self-advocacy workshops for professional and academic groups. This dovetails with her research interests in the effects of microaggressions and micro-affirmations and developing retention strategies for underrepresented groups in STEM.

Dr. Hein received SWE’s Engaged Advocate and Outstanding Faculty Advisor awards (2020) and was inducted into Michigan Tech’s Presidential Council of Alumnae in 2023.

She and her husband own a jam, bakery, and gift shop, and a farm where they raise vegetables, fruit, bees, chickens, ducks, bunnies, goats, and alpacas. Dr. Hein is the proud mom of an electrical engineer, a computer science student, and a FIRST Robotics/SWENext club president.