Meet the Honors Program staff
Director: Deirdre D. Ragan, Ph.D.
Dr. Ragan joined the Honors Program in August 2014. She has a number of Citadel alumni in her family and is thrilled to lead The Citadel Honors Program. She has a passion for education and for people and loves to assist cadets in their endeavors.
Dr. Ragan attended high school in Los Alamos, NM, spending college summers working at Los Alamos National Lab. She received degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from Rice University (B.S.) and the University of California at Santa Barbara (M.S. and Ph.D.). Along the way, she also received a Fulbright Fellowship for conducting solid-state physics research in Sweden. Deirdre holds 5 patents for ideas conceived and developed at PPG Industries. PPG Industries is a Fortune 500 company specializing in glass and coatings.
Dr. Ragan enjoys teaching in the Honors Program, both as a one-on-one mentor in Honors tutorial courses and in many multidisciplinary Honors courses. Since 2017 she has been part of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in materials science and engineering design.
In 2019, Dr. Ragan was selected as the Lowcountry Engineer of the Year by the Charleston Engineering Joint Council. In 2022, she was awarded The Citadel’s Grimsley Award for Undergraduate Teaching. In 2023, Dr. Ragan was named to the All-Southern Conference Faculty Team and awarded The Citadel Excellence in Service Award.
Dr. Ragan grew up in various places across the United States (CA, NM, TX, SC, NC, and PA), but she considers both the mountains of northern New Mexico and the beaches of Charleston home. She now lives with her husband and children in the Charleston area.