While some members of the Marquette community attend conferences and celebrations wearing personalized name tags, Brooke Mayer went to STEM Forward’s Celebration of STEM event on Feb. 6 with an extra addition to her badge. Underneath the laminated tag with her name was a blue ribbon that read, “Award winner.”
After first being announced on Jan. 15, Mayer, professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering, was officially recognized as the 2025 STEM Forward Engineer of the Year. The honor is presented annually to an outstanding engineer in the Milwaukee seven county circle, and it found Mayer after years of work as a researcher, teacher and mentor.
“It’s a wonderful award to celebrate because I think it just demonstrates the impact of the work that Dr. Mayer and her colleagues have been doing, particularly in the area of environmental engineering and the water quality center,” Kristina Ropella, dean of the Opus College of Engineering, said. “She’s a leader in this, not just at Marquette and in Milwaukee, but on a national level.”
Embedded within Mayer’s body of work is her commitment to Marquette’s tagline: “Be The Difference.” In addition to researching and actively striving to build a future with a protected environment and cleaner drinking water, Mayer has shown a commitment to creating a better world for engineers to come.
Within the last three years, Mayer has been heavily involved with Science and Technologies for Phosphorus Sustainability, a research center backed by the National Science Foundation committed to the sustainability of phosphorus, which is comparable to fossil fuels in its status as a non-renewable resource.
“We take that waste phosphorus in water systems and then grab it in a way that we can use it back in agricultural production—so you kind of short-circuit the loop,” Mayer said. “It’s a large national center. [There is] lots of involvement from researchers across different places [and] lots of community engagement. Wastewater treatment plants are partners in it, all the way to farmers, growers, things like that.”
STEPS, led by North Carolina State University, intertwines 10 colleges and universities across the United States, including Marquette, to come together as leaders and critically analyze the presence of phosphorus.
“We work together with these schools on different facets of phosphorus sustainability, so it could be things like mining it better to growing food better,” Mayer said. “A lot of our role is on water quality, so thinking about how you can get rid of pollutant phosphorus to avoid things like algae blooms, but also to recover that phosphorus so that you can put it back into usable food production.”
Mayer’s initial role with STEPS was co-director of Education and Human Resources, leading networking efforts and creating a sense of belonging for the estimated 50 researchers and 50-100 students. Over time, she has continued to grow in her research role and emerge as an integral part of the leadership team.
“Phosphorus is a limited resource and people project that in the next 50 to 200 years we will run out of [it],” Daniel Zitomer, chair and professor of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, director of Water Quality Center and mentor to Mayer, said. “It’s a really pressing concern that we have enough phosphorus and they’re trying to deal with that—so she’s really a leader in that area.”
STEPS joins the ranks of organizations impacted by Mayer’s leadership, which includes work from when she first arrived at Marquette. Coming to Milwaukee in 2012, Mayer began running summer outreach and STEM programs for students in middle school and high school.
“It’s very much a part of who she is and wanting to help develop leaders of the future,” Ropella said.
For over five years, Mayer has worked with Engineers Without Borders, an organization that strives to improve communities around the world through engineering initiatives. Serving in a mentor role for the Marquette chapter of EWB, which operates in Guatemala, Mayer has been involved with projects ranging from bridge and schoolhouse construction to various water-related projects.
“It’s mind blowing to me that our students are able to do this and they do it in partnership with professional engineers,” Mayer said.
Additionally, Mayer previously worked with the Society of Women Engineers, another large-scale initiative that has a chapter at Marquette. With SWE, Mayer was heavily involved in networking efforts, connecting successful engineers with others who came from different walks of life.
In her primary role as an educator, Mayer has an energetic teaching style, showing an unwavering commitment to students who spend time in her classroom.
“She really cares about the students and cares about the quality of teaching and is engaged with a lot of undergraduates and graduate students,” Zitomer said.
Zitomer added that because she works with a range of engineers from first-year students to young professors, Mayer is constantly acting as a mentor.
As a mentor, in addition to teaching and researching, Mayer has found her work with others to “be the difference” at a university that tasks its community to do so.
“The heart of it [is] really in networking, from pre-college all the way to post-college to try to make sure that people are connected,” Mayer said. “And know that there’s a support system and also be able to see successful engineers from all walks of life and all diversity—and that anything’s possible.”
This story was written by Lance Schulteis. He can be reached at lance.schulteis@marquette.edu.
