Our Faculty Advisors
Dr. Rebecca Friesen
Dr. Friesen joined Texas A&M University as an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering in 2022. Previously, she worked as a postdoc in Cognitive Robotics at Delft University of Technology and received her Ph.D. from Northwestern University’s Robotics and Biosystems Center. Her haptics research group at A&M focuses on the actuation and perception of broadband tactile cues for enhanced interactions with haptic displays and virtual reality. She is particularly interested in leveraging our understanding of human somatosensation for efficient haptic signal representation and design. She has been participating in SWE outreach activities as a member since 2022, and is the student chapter advisor at A&M since 2024.
Dr. Arkasama Bandyopadhyay
Dr. Bandyopadhyay began at Texas A&M University as a Research Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering in 2020, before transitioning to an Instructional Assistant Professor role in 2023. She previously earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Mathematics from Oklahoma State University and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests span the areas of residential demand response, sustainability, active learning, Bloom's taxonomy, responsible Generative AI usage, and project-based learning. Dr. Bandyopadhyay is passionate about undergraduate education and mentoring, and she joined the Society of Women Engineers as a faculty advisor in 2025 to support student development and outreach efforts.
