Amanda Rogers ’08 is Helping Bring Innovative Medicines to the Public

Amanda Rogers ’08 knew she wanted to study engineering, but she also wanted access to a well-rounded college experience. “At the time, Stevens was one of the few colleges close to New York City offering the bachelor of engineering degree,” she says. “And because Stevens is a small school, it felt like a comfortable place to get involved and try new things.”

Rogers joined Tau Beta Pi and the Stevens Student Chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). Music was a big part of her college years as well. “I played in the DeBaun Performing Arts Center’s pit orchestra and Jazz Band,” she says. “I was also part of a jazz group called Engineered Improvisation. Through these groups, I had the opportunity to play locally and travel a bit, too. We met other musicians, actors and stage crew members. It was a wonderful experience.”

Study abroad further expanded Rogers’ education. “I spent a semester at the University of Dundee in Scotland,” she says. “I got to take an organic chemistry class with medicinal chemists. I learned things that were applicable later when I started my career in pharma.”

She also took advantage of undergraduate research opportunities available at Stevens, even co-authoring a book chapter titled, “Nanotechnology based Delivery Systems” that was included in Biomedical Nanostructures, published by John Wiley and Sons.

When asked about the many things she feels she gained from studying at Stevens, however, Rogers refers to the university’s overall approach to engineering education. “I never felt pressured, or even encouraged, to know the right answer to everything,” she explains. “Instead, we learned how to approach solving problems. It was up to us to look up the components of the problem, find out about the different techniques that we could use, and create our own simulations. We were given the freedom to figure things out.”

Rogers joined Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) right out of college, following a summer internship there. “I was fortunate to land the internship through a Stevens alumnus who was still in contact with one of my professors,” she says. “I was impressed by the company’s dedication to science and also to patients, and the teams I worked with were terrific. I knew that this is where I wanted to start my full-time career.”

Within a few years, BMS sponsored Rogers for a Ph.D. in chemical engineering, which she earned at Rutgers. In 2015, the year she completed her degree, she also earned the Rutgers University Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Graduate Research and Scholarship Award – and became a research investigator at BMS.

Rogers’ responsibilities at BMS grew steadily. In 2018 she earned the Bristol Myers Squibb Chemistry Leadership Award, and in 2025 she was named Senior Director of Development to Launch Analytics. “The work that BMS does is near and dear to my heart,” she says. “The company addresses areas of high, unmet need in therapeutic areas including oncology and hematology.”

Since co-authoring research at Stevens, Rogers has co-authored a steady stream of publications, the most recent focusing on the “Use of Bayesian Modeling for Risk Assessment and Robustness Evaluation,” included in a 2024 issue of Organic Process Research & Development.

In addition to her corporate career and publication work, Rogers is a generous contributor to her community. While in graduate school, she volunteered at a food bank with People On The Rise, a South Plainfield, NJ-based organization, and contributed her time to teach mathematics to incarcerated students through the Prison Teaching Initiative. She currently volunteers as an assistant coach for her son’s recreational soccer team and as the treasurer for her daughter’s Girl Scout troop. Whenever possible, she makes connections with and for Stevens students as well.

“As alumni we can help mentor Stevens students and prepare them for roles in our industries,” she explains.

“Securing an engineering degree can be really challenging,” Rogers adds. “Even so, I encourage students to take advantage of opportunities at Stevens to learn other disciplines. For example, I took a biomedical ethics class that turned out to be more relevant than I expected. A Victorian literature class opened my eyes to how people thought at a different time in history, which helped me appreciate that, even today, not everyone is going to think the way I do. There aren’t many times in your life where your only job is to learn; it is important to use the opportunity to reach above and beyond engineering.”