Paul Snider

Professor of Practice

Contact information

Education

B.S., Mechanical Engineering, Kansas State University, 1992

Professional experience

Paul Snider received his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Kansas State University in 1992. He has served as professor of practice in the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering since August 2022, leading an interdisciplinary senior design capstone course pilot program for undergraduate engineering students.

Prior to his arrival at K-State, Snider spent 27 years at Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado, serving as a systems engineer; test engineer; assembly, test and launch operations manager; and program manager with more than 20 years of space hardware integration, test and launch experience in the civilian, defense and commercial business sectors.

Academic highlights

Snider launched an interdisciplinary senior design capstone course pilot program in the spring 2023 semester that featured 13 students in two teams from electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering, industrial engineering and computer science. The teams participate in a collaborative teamwork design experience, with the first semester consisting of conceptual and preliminary design work and the second semester moving on to detailed design and prototype development work.

Interdisciplinary senior design capstone expanded in the fall 2023 and spring 2024 semesters, and culminated in six interdisciplinary teams that featured 36 students from six different engineering degree programs displaying their projects with 29 other department design teams at the inaugural Engineering Design Showcase that Snider organized for the college.

Snider initiated Project InCubeate, a novel approach to develop CubeSat mission concepts, in the fall 2024 semester when freshman honors students conceptualized CubeSat missions to inform senior design capstone students. In the spring 2025 semester, Snider led a new interdisciplinary engineering capstone design experience for a CubeSat Project. Twenty-five students from six different degree programs, including four engineering technology students from the Salina campus, participated in mission formulation, definition and selection, and presented CubeSat mission merit and feasibility to academic and industry review panelists for evaluation and direction. Students displayed their mission emphasis and a full scale 3D print of the CubeSat at the second annual Engineering Design Showcase that Snider organized for the college.