Carol B. Muller
Founder, President and CEO
Carol B. Muller, Ph.D., is the Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of MentorNet. MentorNet is a nonprofit organization founded in 1997 to further women's progress in scientific and technical fields through the use of a dynamic, technology-supported mentoring program; and to advance women and society, and enhance engineering and related sciences, by promoting a diversified, expanded and talented workforce. She is responsible for establishing and implementing the vision for the organization and its programs, developing needed resources, and managing those resources with the help of staff, volunteers, and partners to produce services of high quality and deliver results. In addition to serving as MentorNet's President and CEO, she is a consulting Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University.
Prior to founding MentorNet, Dr. Muller spent 20 years in higher education administration, most recently as Associate Dean for Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. Her experience includes extensive work in engineering and science education, as well as strategic planning, faculty recruitment, curriculum development, board management, external relations, program planning, facilities planning, assessment, residential education, and college admissions. In 1990, she co-founded Dartmouth's award-winning Women in Science Project. Dedicated to encouraging women to pursue their interests in engineering and science, she worked with national networks to learn how other campuses were addressing the underrepresentation of women in those fields, and how organizations could help leverage change, and create effective strategies in other locations. Upon moving to California in 1996, she had the opportunity to develop further the concept electronic mentoring program she'd initiated as a pilot project at Dartmouth, through a strategic and business planning process for a national program. In 1997, with the help of industry, professional societies, and academic institutions, she launched the large-scale program called MentorNet. Dr. Muller has authored or co-authored more than 40 conference and journal articles, is a frequently invited speaker, and has procured a wide variety of grants from foundations, corporations, and the federal government in support of educational programs and scholarships.
Dr. Muller earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy and English from Dartmouth College, and masters and doctoral degrees in education administration and policy analysis from Stanford University; the focus of her Ph.D. dissertation research was career and family patterns of men and women doctoral recipients.
"MentorNet provides the opportunity to leverage past experience and research to create a useful resource to support and advance women in engineering and science, but also provides an opportunity to learn how best to use electronic communications technology to connect people and build community. We're breaking new ground and creating networks and relationships that couldn't have existed before these technologies were available, and we want to use research to learn how to use them for maximum effect,” Dr. Muller says. “As we approach having 5,000 mentors and students involved with MentorNet, obviously I can't know all of them personally, but I've met hundreds who clearly are engaged and supporting the program, and it's really fun to have their mix of ideas, insights, talent, and expertise inform how MentorNet grows. Our growth and dynamic environment produce their own challenges, but the more students and professionals we can serve the more organizations we can bring in as partners, and the more collective impact we can have."
Contact Dr. Muller by email at cbmuller@mentornet.net