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Rosalie Hrybyk Keeps it Real

Headshot of Rosalie Hrybyk

Celebrate Women and Multiracial Engineers

New professor of practice brings an industry perspective to today’s students

Double alum Rosalie Faith Hrybyk ’13, M.S. ’15 returned to the Clark School in 2025 to serve as the new James A. Milke Endowed Professor of Practice for the Department of Fire Protection Engineering (FPE). She brings to her alma mater nearly 10 years of industry experience, specializing in performance-based design, fire and egress modeling, and smoke control rational analyses.

Honoring mentors by empowering students

Beginning as an undecided engineering major at the Clark School, Hrybyk found FPE as a student in the Women in Engineering (WIE) program’s Flexus living-and-learning community and counts WIE director Paige Smith and Professor Emeritus and immediate past FPE Chair James Milke ’76, M.S. ’81, Ph.D. ’91among her mentors.

Being a recent graduate means she remembers what it’s like to be a student, and she tries to keep up with topical student interests, including wildland fires, lithium-ion battery fires, and the influence of AI on the industry. “I love interacting with students, and engaging with their creativity and different perspectives,” she says. “Through this role I’m paying my opportunities back, and it's a complete honor.”

Providing opportunities to students

She sees being the clinical professor as bridging the gap between academics and industry, between students and professors and alums out in the field. In addition to practice-oriented teaching, she devotes her time and energy to recruitment.

“The aspect of engineering a safer world, that’s what resonated with me about FPE. And I think it resonates with a lot of women,” she says, noting the department’s high percentage of women students—around 37%—compared to other engineering disciplines. “I’m grateful for the close-knit community and for getting to be an example for today’s students.”

This semester, Hrybyk is especially excited to teach ENFP-411: Risk-Informed Performance Based Design, which incorporates math and science, along with human behavior—“basically everything the students have learned,” she says—to design for a whole building. This semester’s project is focused on the new Ben and Esther Rosenbloom Maryland Hillel Center at UMD.

Connections beyond the classroom

In addition to teaching, Hrybyk stays connected to fellow FPE alums through the FPE Alumni Club, serving as treasurer. She is a member of the department’s Curriculum Advisory Committee and a member of the SFPE Grand Challenges Initiatives committee. She also helps with the Salamander Honor Society—a salamander is a fire lizard—for FPE. “It’s all about the students,” she says of her contributions. “How I can put my own spin on teaching, add real-life examples and emerging topics, and bring industry connections in,” she says. “I hope to raise awareness of FPE and see our numbers grow.”

Published March 2, 2026