Emily Roberts is focused on earning a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering – but her own success is not the only thing on her agenda. She’ll also be working hard to represent her fellow Iowa State undergraduates as the newly-elected president of Iowa State University Student Government.

A Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering (CBE) senior, Roberts has served Student Government for the past academic year as chief of staff and will is now moving into the president’s role. Her term will last until April 2024. As chief of staff she assisted the president and vice president in managing the group’s executive cabinet, which is comprised of 15 directors.

Roberts is no stranger to advocating for students. In her time with Student Government she also served as director of academic affairs and has worked as a peer mentor in CBE. She has played a key role in helping to cultivate students’ academic experiences.

“Emily stepped in to support the CBE Transfer Student Learning Community in the fall of 2022 as a peer mentor when enrollment continued to rise and the community grew beyond the mentorship of a single chemical engineering student,” says CBE academic adviser Matthew Brown. 

“Serving as a CBE peer mentor for transfer students, I had the opportunity to connect with students who had a similar beginning to me at Iowa State,” says Roberts, who came to ISU as a transfer student in 2021. “It allowed me to form a deeper connection with the CBE department and to realize how lucky we are in regard to career services, student organizations, and research opportunities here.”

Roberts is planning to graduate in May of 2024. Between now and then she will have ample time to further enjoy her time in CBE: “I have loved being a part of the CBE department. While the major is definitely challenging, the faculty are extremely student-oriented and work to make the courses engaging. I have met many incredible faculty members throughout my studies.”

One CBE faculty member, Luke Roling, has something in common with Roberts: He also served as president of Student Government (Government of the Student Body as it was called then) in 2010-2011 when he was a CBE undergraduate.

Roberts is a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, served on the Collegiate Panhellenic Council in 2021 and was the director of Yell Like Hell for Iowa State’s 2022 Homecoming. She says after graduation she hopes to step into a full-time job role with Marathon Petroleum Corporation in Mandan, ND, where she has worked as an intern.