2017 New Faculty at the Swanson School of Engineering

OUR NEW

FACULTY

S WA N S O N S C H O O L O F E N G I N E E R I N G

With the beginning of the 2017-2018 academic year, it is my pleasure to introduce our new faculty cohort. Our search committees have recruited a dynamic array of researchers and teachers, and I hope you will join me in welcoming them to the University of Pittsburgh.

I would also like to congratulate our current faculty who received promotions and appointments this year. Most notably, two were recognized by Chancellor Patrick Gallagher – Anna Balazs, Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, was named to the John A. Swanson Endowed Chair of Engineering; and Minking Chyu, Associate Dean for International Studies and inaugural Dean of the Sichuan University – Pittsburgh Institute, was appointed Distinguished Service Professor.

Both are outstanding researchers in their fields as well as respected mentors and colleagues, and are most deserving of these honors.

Lastly, as you may know, earlier this year I announced that I would return to the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering faculty in fall 2018, after having served 22 years as U.S. Steel Dean of the Swanson School of Engineering. It has been my honor to serve Pitt and the Swanson School, and to help guide it through tremendous growth over the past two decades. I am confident that the search committee, under the direction of Provost Patty Beeson, will find a successor who will further build upon our reputation for academic and research excellence in engineering.

Please join me in congratulating our faculty on their appointments and promotions, and I hope you will continue to follow their success through our web site, engineering.pitt.edu.

Sincerely,

Gerald D. Holder U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering Distinguished Service Professor

D E PA R T M E N T O F B I O E N G I N E E R I N G

MARK

GARTNER Professor of Practice (NTS)

After receiving his BS in mechanical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Gartner earned his dual ME in mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, followed by an MBA from Pitt, and later his PhD in biomedical engineering from CMU. Dr. Gartner began his career in medical product design and development in 1988 as a clinical bioengineer in the mechanical circulatory support program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. His work included clinical care of patients supported by various type of mechanical circulatory support devices including total artificial heart and ventricular assist devices. He later designed several types of integrated pump-oxygenator devices becoming the director of the Pittsburgh chronic artificial lung program. Dr. Gartner co-founded Ension, Inc., a verticallyintegrated incubator that developed medical products based on a “surface first” philosophy. At Ension, he oversaw several medical product development initiatives and served as Principal Investigator on several grants and contracts, most notably NIH’s recent Pumps for Kids, Neonates, and Infants (PumpKIN) effort.

In 2003, Dr. Gartner developed and has since taught the Senior Design course sequence in the Swanson School’s Department of Bioengineering. This two-semester capstone course requires bioengineering students to synthesize and extend principles from prior coursework toward the design or redesign of a medical product.

engineering.pitt.edu/bioengineering

BISTRA

IORDANOVA

Visiting Research Assistant Professor (NTS)

Dr. Iordanova received her PhD from Carnegie Mellon University developing ferritin-based MRI reporter genes under the guidance of Dr. Eric Ahrens. During her graduate studies she was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. She was a post-doctoral associate with Dr. Seong-Gi Kim at the University of Pittsburgh, where her work was funded by NIH T32 award for developing optogenetic and intrinsic signal approaches to study neurovascular coupling in the brain. Dr. Iordanova is also a recipient of a research award from the Alzheimer’s Association to uncover early vascular neurometabolic and neurovascular relationships in the healthy and diseased brain. Her research interests include using optical imaging of transgenic mice models to uncover early vascular and metabolic events in Alzheimer’s Disease and developing approaches for improvement of cerebral blood flow after cardiac arrest.

engineering.pitt.edu/bioengineering

MAHENDER ARJUN

MANDALA Visiting Assistant Professor (NTS)

Dr. Mandala earned his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology. His work lies at the intersection of mechanical engineering, design, medical technology, and education. Dr. Mandala previously worked as an instructor in the Department of Bioengineering and at the Research Experience for Teachers and Veterans program at the Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology, where he is currently completing his postdoctoral training under Dr. Jonathan Pearlman and Dr. Mary Goldberg. His research interests include product design and development, design theory and research, assistive technology and rehabilitation, engineering design, and engineering education. He will be working primarily with the first-year program and assisting with a Center for Medical Innovation course.

engineering.pitt.edu/bioengineering

ABHIJIT

ROY

Research Assistant Professor (NTS)

Dr. Roy completed his PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India on nano and micro-crystalline ferrites for applications in magnetic recording and ferrofluid. He then joined the Institute of Technology for Nanostructures and Technology (NST), University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany to work on the gas phase syntheses of nanostructured materials. He moved to the United States in 2007 to join the group of Professor Prashant N. Kumta, Distinguished Professor, Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh and has been working as a research assistant professor since 2016.

Dr. Roy is broadly interested in developing regenerative biomaterials to solve and address critical problems in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering.

engineering.pitt.edu/bioengineering

WARREN

RUDER Assistant Professor

Prior to Pitt, Dr. Ruder was assistant professor of biological systems engineering at Virginia Tech where he directed the Engineered Living Systems Laboratory. His work focuses on merging biomechanical systems and the microscale and nanoscale with engineering living cells and smart material systems, the latter of which involves synthetic biology.

He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a BS in civil and environmental engineering, and completed his MS in mechanical engineering and PhD in biomedical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Ruder was also part of the inaugural “Biomechanics in Regenerative Medicine� class, a joint program between Pitt and CMU funded by the National Institutes of Health, which aims to provide training in biomechanical engineering principles and biology to students pursuing doctoral degrees in bioengineering.

engineering.pitt.edu/bioengineering

D E PA R T M E N T O F C H E M I C A L A N D P E T R O L E U M E N G I N E E R I N G

HSEEN

BALED Assistant Professor (NTS)

Dr. Baled received his PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and his diploma (BSc+MSc) in chemical engineering from RWTH Aachen University, Germany. He has extensive research experience in high-pressure fluid thermodynamic and transport properties and phase equilibria. Beginning in 2015, Dr. Baled worked at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) as an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) Research Associate. He studied the viscosity and phase behavior of crude oil components at deepwater conditions of extreme temperatures and pressures, as well as pre-combustion carbon dioxide capture using physical solvents.

engineering.pitt.edu/chemical

TAGBO

NIEPA Assistant Professor

Dr. Niepa currently focuses on interfacial phenomena associated with bacterial films and is developing artificial microniches to model microbiome dynamics as well as microbial communities relevant to antibiotic discovery.

His research also seeks to understand how beneficial microbes could better clean the environment after an oil spill and how pathogens could be prevented from causing disease. He earned an associate degree in food science at the Food Industry College (Ivory Coast) and worked at the Pasteur Institute as a research associate, before transferring to the University of Dortmund (Germany) to study bioengineering. He later earned a BS in biomedical engineering and PhD in chemical engineering from Syracuse University.

His doctoral research on the electrochemical control of bacterial persister cells revealed new means to control the electrophysiology of highly drug-tolerant bacterial cells and sensitize pathogenic persister and biofilm cells to antibiotics. His technology was tested successfully for safety on human cells and for efficacy in curing a rabbit model of sinusitis, and was awarded two U.S. patents and recognized by Syracuse University with the All-University Doctoral Prize. Dr. Niepa is a co-founder of Helios Innovative Technologies Inc. (now PurpleSun Inc.), a medical device company that develops automated sterilization systems to fight bacterial cross-contamination.

engineering.pitt.edu/chemical

D E PA R T M E N T O F C I V I L A N D E N V I R O N M E N TA L E N G I N E E R I N G

LEV

KHAZANOVICH Anthony Gill Chair Professor

Dr. Khazanovich received his BS from Leningrad Institute of Civil Engineering and PhD from the University of Illinois.

Prior to joining Pitt, he was a professor at the University of Minnesota. Over the past 25 years he has been involved in various aspects of pavement research, design, and evaluation, including performance prediction modeling, non-destructive testing, and finite element modeling. During development of the AASHTO Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide, Dr. Khazanovich served as a member of Rigid Pavement Leadership Team responsible for structural modeling of rigid pavements and overlays, development of neural networks to predict critical structural responses, subgrade characterization procedures, and development of faulting prediction. His papers have received awards from the Transportation Research Board and International Society for Concrete Pavement. He is an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Pavement Engineering and a former member of Board of Directors of the International Society for Concrete Pavements.

engineering.pitt.edu/civil

STEPHEN

SACHS Assistant Professor (NTS)

Dr. Sachs received his BS and PhD in civil engineering from the University of Pittsburgh, and was previously employed by the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County and PennDOT. His doctoral dissertation examined the development of a joint faulting model for unbonded concrete overlays. He has researched the calibration of the rigid pavement performance models for Pavement ME (Mechanistic-Empirical) Design Guide, the development of a design guide for Bonded Concrete Overlays of Asphalt Pavements (BCOA-ME) funded by NCHRP, and the development of an improved design procedure for Unbonded Concrete Overlays of Existing Concrete Pavements, which is funded under an FHWA pooled fund study. His primary research interests include finite element modeling of pavement structures, rigid pavement design and analysis, and mechanistic-empirical design procedures.

engineering.pitt.edu/civil

MAX

STEPHENS Assistant Professor

Prior to Pitt, Dr. Stephens was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Auckland, New Zealand where his research was supported by the New Zealand Centre for Earthquake Resilience. He received his BS and MS in civil engineering from Portland State University, and PhD in civil engineering with a structural focus from the University of Washington. His research focuses on the development of resilient communities and structures using experimental and analytical methods.

engineering.pitt.edu/civil

HAO

SUN Assistant Professor

Dr. Sun’s research interests include resilient and intelligent structures, advanced sensing, data analytics, uncertainty quantification and inverse computational mechanics for structural health monitoring. Dr. Sun is the recipient of multiple scholarships and awards, including two poster competition awards from EMI Conference 2014, Boeing Fellowship, NSF Workshop Travel Award and China National Merit Scholarship. He obtained his PhD and M.Phil. in engineering mechanics and MS in civil engineering from Columbia University, after completing his BS in civil engineering at Hohai University in Nanjing, China. Prior to joining Pitt he was a postdoctoral associate and research affiliate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

engineering.pitt.edu/civil

D E PA R T M E N T O F E L E C T R I C A L A N D C O M P U T E R E N G I N E E R I N G

JUN

CHEN

Research Assistant Professor (NTS)

Dr. Chen previously was a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pittsburgh. He received his PhD from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences and his B.S. from Wuhan University, China. His research interests include state of the art nanofabrication and characterization techniques, quantum nanoelectronics in low dimensional systems such as 2D electronic gas, 1D semiconductor nanowires and quantum dots, topological phase of matter including topological insulators and superconductors.

engineering.pitt.edu/ece

AHMED

DALLAL

Assistant Professor (NTS)

Dr. Dallal received his B.S. (honors) and M.S. in systems and biomedical engineering from Cairo University, Egypt and his PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Pittsburgh, where he focused on human-machine interaction and networked control applications for air traffic management.

His research interests include biomedical signal processing, biomedical image analysis, computer vision and machine learning, networked control systems, and humanmachine interaction and learning.

engineering.pitt.edu/ece

WEI

GAO Associate Professor

Dr. Gao’s research interests include mobile and embedded computing systems, cyberphysical systems, Internet of Things, wireless networking and big data. He has published more than 60 research papers at various top-tier journals and conference proceedings, and has attracted more than $2.5 million of external research funding from various federal agencies including NSF and ARO. He is also the recipient of a 2016 NSF CAREER award.

He received a BE in electrical engineering from the University of Science and Technology of China and a PhD in computer science from The Pennsylvania State University.

engineering.pitt.edu/ece

JINGTONG

HU

Assistant Professor

Prior to joining Pitt, Dr. Hu was an assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Oklahoma State University. His research interests include embedded systems, FPGA, and emerging memory technology. Dr. Hu has served as Technical Program Committee for many international conferences such as ASP-DAC, DATE, DAC, ESWEEK, RTSS, etc. He is also the recipient of OSU CEAT Outstanding New Faculty Award, Women’s Faculty Council Research Award, and Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowship. Dr. Hu received his PhD in computer science from the University of Texas at Dallas and BE from the School of Computer Science and Technology, Shandong University, China.

engineering.pitt.edu/ece

HENG

HUANG John A. Jurenko Professor in Computer Engineering

Dr. Huang joins Pitt after serving as Distinguished University Professor in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington, and adjunct professor of clinical sciences at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. His research areas include machine learning, big data mining, imaging genomics, medical image analysis, bioinformatics, health informatics, computational neuroscience, and precision medicine. Dr. Huang has published more than 130 papers in top-tier conferences and many papers in premium journals, such as NIPS, ICML, KDD, RECOMB, ISMB, IJCAI, AAAI, CVPR, ICCV, SIGIR, Bioinformatics, IEEE Trans. on Medical Imaging, Medical Image Analysis, and IEEE TKDE. Dr. Huang’s numerous research projects include: A $2 million NIH R01 award (as PI) on imaging genomics-based complex brain disorders; multiple (5 as PI and 3 as Co-PI) NSF-funded projects on precision medicine, biomedical data science, big data mining, electronic medical record data mining and privacy-preservation, computational biology, smart healthcare, and cyber physical systems; and industry-funded projects (e.g. Con Edison in New York City) on computational sustainability, smart metering, and the smart grid. He received his PhD in computer science from Dartmouth College.

engineering.pitt.edu/ece

D E PA R T M E N T O F I N D U S T R I A L E N G I N E E R I N G

ANDRÉS

GOMEZ Assistant Professor

Dr. Gomez received his MS and PhD in industrial engineering and operations research from the University of California at Berkeley. He received dual BS degrees in computer science and mathematics from the Universidad de Los Andes in BogotĂĄ, Colombia. His research interests include mixed-integer optimization, nonlinear optimization, decision making under uncertainty as well as applications in areas such as finance, machine learning, revenue management, routing, and supply chain.

engineering.pitt.edu/industrial

D E PA R T M E N T O F M E C H A N I C A L E N G I N E E R I N G A N D M AT E R I A L S S C I E N C E

HE HENG

BAN Professor

Dr. Heng Ban was the founding Director of the Center for Thermohydraulics and Material Properties at Utah State University, where he served as a Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

His research focuses on thermal sciences, especially thermophysical properties of materials, and measurement techniques in energy applications. He earned his PhD in mechanical engineering at the University of Kentucky; MS in engineering thermal sciences from the University of Science and Technology, China; and BS in engineering mechanics from Tsinghua University, Beijing.

engineering.pitt.edu/mems

KATHERINE

HORNBOSTEL Assistant Professor

Prior to Pitt, Dr. Hornbostel was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where she conducted research in the Energy Conversion subgroup in the field of carbon capture technology. In particular, she designs surfaces that can selectively adsorb CO2 from the gas exhaust of a power plant. She also used the additive manufacturing capabilities on-site at LLNL to produce and test out these adsorbing objects experimentally. Dr. Hornbostel received her PhD in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and BS and MS in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

engineering.pitt.edu/mems

INANC

SENOCAK

Associate Professor

Dr. Senocak was the founder and director of the High Performance Simulation Laboratory for Thermo-Fluids (HiPerSimLab) at Boise State University, where he was associate professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering. His research interests include computational fluid dynamics, wind forecasting, parallel computing, turbulence modeling, cavitating flows, and atmospheric dispersion. He received his BS in mechanical engineering from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, and PhD in aerospace engineering from the University of Florida at Gainesville. After graduation, he held postdoctoral research positions at the Center for Turbulence Research (jointly operated by NASA Ames Research Center and Stanford University) and at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he worked on large eddy simulation of atmospheric boundary layer flows and source inversion of atmospheric dispersion events, respectively.

Dr. Senocak is a recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award.

engineering.pitt.edu/mems

FACULTY

Appointments and Promotions BIOENGINEERING Kurt Beschorner, Research Assistant Professor to Associate Professor (NTS) Lance Davison, Associate to Full Professor Richard Debski, Associate to Full Professor Neeraj Gandhi, Associate to Full Professor CHEMICAL AND PETROLEUM ENGINEERING Anna Balazs, appointed the John A. Swanson Endowed Chair in Engineering Taryn Bayles, appointed Vice Chair for Undergraduate Education Lei Li, Assistant to Associate Professor with Tenure Robert Parker, appointed Vice Chair for Graduate Education CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING Vikas Khanna, Assistant to Associate Professor with Tenure ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING Samuel Dickerson, appointed Associate Director of the Computer Engineering program Amro El-Jaroudi, appointed Associate Department Chair Alexander K. Jones, Associate to Full Professor Ervin Sejdic, Assistant to Associate Professor with Tenure Susheng Tan, Research Assistant to Research Associate Professor (NTS) Jun Yang, Associate to Full Professor INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING Mary Besterfield-Sacre, appointed Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Youngjae Chun, Assistant to Associate Professor with Tenure Lisa Maillart, Associate to Full Professor Oleg Prokopyev, Associate to Full Professor MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AND MATERIALS SCIENCE Minking Chyu, appointed Distinguished Service Professor

The University of Pittsburgh is an affirmative action, equal opportunity institution.

10/2017

University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering 104 Benedum Hall 3700 O’Hara Street Pittsburgh, PA 15261 engineering.pitt.edu