Patrick Mensah is the Formosa Endowed Professor of Mechanical Engineering and serves as the associate dean for research, graduate programs and faculty development in the College of Sciences and Engineering at Southern University and A&M College. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and his doctorate from Louisiana State University. From 2007 to 2009, he worked at the National Science Foundation as the program director for the Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology Program for minority-serving institutions in the Education and Human Resources Directorate. Mensah is a member of the Louisiana Board of Regent Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research Program Committee and is the southern university system representative on the Louisiana Board of Regents Advisory Committee for the Advancement of Research. He is the principal investigator and director of the CREST Center for Next Generation Multifunctional Composites at Southern University A&M College and the Louis Stokes Louisiana Alliance for Minority Participation, which is a statewide alliance of 14 institutions. He also serves as a co-investigator and member of the leadership teams for two NSF EPSCoR Track 1 funded projects, the Consortium for Innovation in Manufacturing and Materials and the Louisiana Materials Design Alliance. Both projects include REU and research experiences for teachers’ programs that are integral components for ensuring diversity and minority STEM workforce development.

He has been named the 2014 Carnegie African Diaspora Fellow, 2013 Fellow-ASME, and the 2005 Southern University Teacher of the Year. He received the 2010 National Role Model Faculty Award presented by Minority Access, 2002 ASME International Eckart Service Award, 2002 Southern University Mentorship Award, and 2001 Southern University Outstanding Researcher. From 2001 to 2007, Mensah served as one of the founding members on the engineering editorial board of the Multimedia Educational Resources for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT), where he contributed to establishing and reviewing outstanding online learning and support materials for the engineering discipline. The MERLOT system provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers. Mensah’s area of research specialization is in thermal fluid science. He is active in ASME International and has served as ASME K-15 committee chair, and vice chair and secretary for transport phenomena in materials processing and manufacturing. He previously served as chair, vice-chair, treasurer and secretary of the Baton Rouge section of ASME. He also served as a member of regional operating board of former ASME Region X.