Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs and Student Success, College of Engineering

Email

Preferred: nicole.okamoto@sjsu.edu

Telephone

Preferred: (408) 924-4054 but email is preferred

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy in Mechanical Engineering, Univ Of Illinois Urbana Campus, 1999

Bio

Nicole graduated from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI, in 1993 with a BS. She continued on at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she worked on both an MSME and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering under the advisement of Dr. Tony Jacobi. Her Ph.D. thesis was entitled “Flow, Heat Transfer, and Pressure-Drop Interactions in Louvered-Fin Arrays.” This work involved analyzing local convective heat transfer in low-Reynolds number flow and how the heat transfer behavior is affected by the fluid dynamics throughout the array. During her years at the University of Illinois, she worked as a research assistant at the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Center, a joint National Science Foundation and Industry collaborative center. 

Upon completion of her dissertation, in January 1999 Nicole began to teach at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where she taught Thermodynamics, Advanced Thermodynamics, Heat Transfer, Introduction to Engineering, and Introduction to Engineering Fundamentals and learned to enjoy barbeque and hot weather. In August 2001 she moved to San Jose State University where she taught classes in the thermal sciences, advised senior design teams and masters students, and did research in modeling of thermal systems and the cooling of electronics. She served as department chair from 2016-2021. In 2021 she moved to the Dean's Office with the role of Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs and Student Success.

Links

Check out our MESA Engineering Program at www.sjsu.edu/mep