Katy Luchini Colbry is the Assistant Dean for Graduate Student Services at the College of Engineering at Michigan State University (MSU), where she completed a BA and BS before earning an MSE and a PhD from the University of Michigan. She has published dozens of peer-reviewed works on engineering education and graduate student success, and has developed the EnSURE (Engineering Summer Undergraduate Research Experience) program at MSU, based on the Entering Research curriculum.
Colbry has also established a series of professional development courses for MSU engineering graduate students, including Entering Mentoring training.
Colbry is co-director of the CyberAmbassadors project (NSF Award #1730137), which has developed 24+ hours of open-source curriculum on communications, teamwork, and leadership skills to support interdisciplinary research. The CyberAmbassadors project includes a facilitator training program and has trained about 150 volunteer facilitators and more than 18,000 participants since its inception in 2017. She also serves as co-PI on a project (NSF Award #2123260) to provide mentoring and support for students at Spelman College (a historically black institution serving women) participating in a 5-year BS+MS program with the MSU graduate program in Data Science.
Colbry volunteers as the Director of the Engineering Futures Program of Tau Beta Pi, the Engineering Honor Society, which provides interactive professional development seminars for thousands of engineering students and professionals each year.