Over the course of his career at MIT, Prof. Dave Roylance has interacted with DMSE undergraduates in an astounding number of ways: on the Undergraduate Committee, as the Communications Advisor, as the Safety Officer, as Executive Officer, writing Mechanics of Materials, a textbook used in 3.11, as the Wellesley/MIT Coordinator, as the ROTC advisor, and more. In addition to these departmental obligations, he has also held an equal number of MIT offices and served on Institute-wide committees dedicated to student life. He is dedicated to the well-being of our students and incredibly knowledgeable about how to help them navigate MIT.
Professor Roylance holds the B.S.M.E. and Ph.D. from the University of Utah, both in Mechanical Engineering. He joined the MIT faculty in 1975, after serving in the U.S. Army, including a stint at the Army Materials and Mechanics Research Center in Watertown where he worked on polymers for high-strain rate and high-temperature applications.
During his career at MIT, Prof. Roylance has taught many undergraduate and graduate subjects and has served as advisor for countless students. He’s seen a remarkable shift in science and engineering education; as a member of the MIT Athena Committee, he helped shape use of computers in the classroom. In DMSE, he was one of the first to assign problem sets that required use of computers.