Ramona Graves
Ramona Graves’ (Ph.D. ’82) first job out of college was as a high school math teacher. Yet, she quickly realized it was not something she wanted to pursue long term. After a friend suggested she’d make a good engineer, Graves began taking chemical engineering classes at the University of Nebraska. “Women just didn’t go into mechanical, or mining, or petroleum,” Graves said. But chemical engineering wasn’t right either, and she instead found her niche studying oil and gas. She came to Mines to pursue her PhD, eventually becoming the second woman in the U.S. to earn a doctorate in petroleum engineering. Graves is now a Mines professor and the Dean of the College of Earth Resource Sciences and Engineering.
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