Jennifer O'Neil - Featured Faculty 2021
Jennifer O'Neil
College of Engineering Technology
Dr. O’Neil is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering Technology in the College of Engineering Technology. Her research interests are focused in two areas, engineering education and spray physics.
Her first area of research, engineering education, focuses on instilling the entrepreneurial mindset into undergraduate engineering students through collaborations with Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN). Having an entrepreneurial mindset helps students identify opportunities, solve problems, and create long-lasting value through their work. This mindset, when integrated into engineering curricula, better prepares students for their future careers by influencing the way students think about the world and act upon what they see to make a positive change. Dr. O’Neil was recently part of a team awarded KEEN grants to support faculty development.
Dr. O’Neil’s second research area, spray physics, aims to improve the treatment of pediatric respiratory diseases through the development of novel respiratory models to support more effective therapies. The World Health Organization’s Global Burden of Disease Report highlights that pulmonary diseases and respiratory tract infections are among the top five causes of pediatric hospitalization and mortality worldwide. Pediatric respiratory diseases are commonly treated via pulmonary drug delivery using a device such as a nebulizer. However, the success of treatment, and possible disease prevention, is dependent on the efficacy of drug particle deposition. Given current deposition efficiencies are less than 3%, current knowledge falls short of what is needed to optimize inhalation delivery devices. Dr. O’Neil is working with a multi-disciplinary, multi-university team of collaborators from RIT and the University of Rochester to improve the understanding of the fundamental science within these aerosolization devices to better patient outcomes.
Dr. O’Neil obtained a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University. Dr. O’Neil has published 7 referred journal papers and 19 conference proceedings.
Jennifer O'Neil
Assistant Professor
RIT College of Engineering Technology