Eleven new faculty to join School of Engineering & Applied Science
“Adding these faculty members at both the junior and senior ranks is a big step in the growth of the size and depth of our research and education programs that are enabled by the expansion of our facilities that is underway," said Aaron F. Bobick, dean
Eleven new faculty will join the School of Engineering & Applied Science in the next year, bringing the total number to 94.
“This is an exceptionally talented group of faculty who will quickly add to our research strengths and introduce new educational opportunities to our students,” said Aaron F. Bobick, dean and the James M. McKelvey Professor. “Adding these faculty members at both the junior and senior ranks is a big step in the growth of the size and depth of our research and education programs that are enabled by the expansion of our facilities that is underway.”
Biomedical Engineering
Nathaniel Huebsch, assistant professor
- PhD, engineering science and medical engineering, Harvard University
- BS, bioengineering, University of California, Berkeley
Huebsch joins BME from the University of California, Berkeley, where he has been a senior scientist in the Department of Bioengineering. Previously, he was a research scientist and postdoctoral fellow at the Gladstone Institute for Cardiovascular Disease. He will begin in January 2018.
Huebsch’s research focus is in basic and translational stem cell mechanobiology, with specific focus on hydrogels to control cell-mediated tissue repair, and 3-D models heart-on-a-chip models derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells.
Michael Vahey, assistant professor
- PhD, SM, electrical engineering and computer science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- BS, electrical and computer engineering, Carnegie Mellon University
Vahey joins BME from the University of California, Berkeley, where he has been a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Bioengineering. He has received numerous awards, including the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Awards at the Scientific Interface grant. He will begin in March 2018.
Vahey’s research has been in live imaging of the influenza A virus assembly; in vitro reconstitution of membrane budding by influenza virus proteins; microfluidic technologies for membrane reconstitution; and miotic spindle assembly in confined volumes.
Computer Science & Engineering
Sanjoy Baruah, professor
- PhD, MS, computer science, University of Texas, Austin
- BTech, computer science and engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India
Baruah joins CSE from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he has been a professor of computer science since 2005 and a member of the faculty since 1999. Previously, he was assistant professor at the University of Vermont and the New Jersey Institute of Technology and a faculty research associate at the University of Maryland. He begins Sept. 1.
Baruah’s research is in scheduling theory; real-time and safety-critical system design; computer networks; resource allocation and sharing in distributed computing environments.
Ayan Chakrabarti, assistant professor
- PhD, SM, engineering sciences, Harvard University
- B Tech, M Tech, electrical engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Chakrabarti joins CSE from Toyota Technological Institute in Chicago, where he is a research assistant professor. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. He joins the faculty Sept. 1.
Chakrabarti’s research focuses on computer vision, computational photography and machine learning. Using tools from machine learning, he works to develop efficient and reliable visual inference algorithms, as well as new high-capability cameras and visual sensors. He also is interested in solving the computer vision applications that impact robotics and autonomous vehicles, graphics and virtual reality, and consumer photography.
Chien-Ju Ho, assistant professor
- PhD, computer science, University of California, Los Angeles
- BS, MS, computer science and information engineering; BS, physics, National Taiwan University
Ho joins CSE from Cornell University, where he is a postdoctoral associate in information science. He was a research intern for Microsoft Research and a visiting doctoral student at Harvard University. He joins the faculty Aug. 1.
Ho’s research centers on the design and analysis of human-in-the-loop systems, with a focus on acquiring and utilizing human-generated data. The research spans and draws from the fields of machine learning, algorithmic economics, optimization, and online behavioral social science.
Ulugbek Kamilov, assistant professor
- PhD, electrical engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
- BSc, MSc, communication systems, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
Kamilov joins the ESE and CSE departments as a 50/50 appointment from Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories in Cambridge, Mass., where he has been a research scientist in computational sensing since 2015. He joins the faculty Sept. 1.
Kamilov’s research areas are developing new techniques for computational imaging in biomedical and industrial applications. His broader research interests include signal and image processing, convex and nonconvex optimization, statistical inference, and machine learning.
Brian Kocoloski, assistant professor
- PhD, computer science, University of Pittsburgh
- BS, computer science, University of Dayton
Kocoloski joins CSE from the University of Pittsburgh, where he is a graduate student researcher. Previously, he was a co-op engineer for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and a research intern at Sandia National Laboratories. He will join the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory temporarily as a visiting scholar before joining CSE Jan. 1, 2018.
Kocoloski’s research seeks to make it easier to efficiently use large parallel computers. His work has been primarily focused in system software, where he has designed operating systems and virtualization mechanisms to improve the scalability of tightly synchronized parallel workloads. Generally, his research interests lie at the intersection of operating systems, parallel runtime systems and resource management policies for large scale distributed systems.
William Yeoh, assistant professor
- PhD, MS, computer science, University of Southern California
- BSE, MS, mechanical engineering and applied mechanics, University of Pennsylvania
Yeoh joins CSE from New Mexico State University, where he has been an assistant professor of computer science since 2012. He received a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation in 2016 and was named one of AI’s 10 to Watch by IEEE Intelligent Systems. Previously, he was a research scientist at Singapore Management University and a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Massachusetts. He joins Sept. 1.
Yeoh’s research focuses on artificial intelligence with an emphasis on developing optimization algorithms for agent-based systems. His primary expertise is in distributed constraint optimization, where his goal is to develop and deploy such algorithms in smart grid and smart home applications, as part of the overall goal of a $5 million National Science Foundation research center for which he is a co-investigator. He is also a co-investigator in a DARPA project, where he will develop distributed algorithms for cloud and edge computing applications.
Electrical & Systems Engineering
Ulugbek Kamilov, assistant professor
- PhD, electrical engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
- BSc, MSc, communication systems, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
Kamilov joins the ESE and CSE departments as a 50/50 appointment from Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories in Cambridge, Mass., where he has been a research scientist in computational sensing since 2015. He joins the faculty Sept. 1.
Kamilov’s research areas are developing new techniques for computational imaging in biomedical and industrial applications. His broader research interests include signal and image processing, convex and nonconvex optimization, statistical inference, and machine learning.
Chuan Wang, assistant professor
- PhD, electrical engineering, University of Southern California
- BS, MS, microelectronics, Peking University, China
Wang joins ESE from Michigan State University, where he has been an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering since 2013. Previously, he was a postdoctoral scholar at University of California, Berkeley, and a postdoctoral affiliate at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He joins the faculty July 2018.
Wang’s research interests include flexible and stretchable electronics for display, sensing and energy harvesting applications, as well as low-cost and scalable inkjet printing processes for microfabrication of flexible electronics. In addition, a second main research direction in his group is high-performance nanoelectronics and optoelectronics using two-dimensional semiconductors.
Shen Zeng, assistant professor
- PhD, engineering, University of Stuttgart
- MSc, engineering cybernetics, University of Stuttgart
- BSc, mathematics & BSc, mechatronics, University of Stuttgart
Zeng joins ESE from the University of Stuttgart, Germany, where he is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in the Institute for Systems Theory and Automatic Control. During his time there, he has been heavily involved in both undergraduate and graduate teaching in the broad area of systems and control theory. He joins Aug. 1.
Zeng's research focuses on systems theoretic methods for the study of complex and large-scale dynamical systems. While in the past, systems theoretic insights have proved to be key in better understanding the crucial dynamical nature in related problems on a smaller scale, the recent flood of data in both science and engineering offers novel ways to also get control over the class of complex and large-scale dynamical systems. Zeng in particular seeks to develop computational methods that will efficiently utilize the abundance of available data for both systems analysis and controller synthesis.
Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering
Peng Bai, assistant professor
- PhD, mechanical engineering, Tsinghua University
- BE, automotive engineering, Tsinghua University
Bai joins the EECE faculty from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is a research scientist. He has been a senior postdoctoral associate and a postdoctoral associate at MIT since 2012. In 2014 he received the Oronzio and Niccolo De Nora Foundation Young Author Prize of the International Society of Electrochemistry. He joins the faculty July 1.
Bai’s research focuses on the mechanism and control of lithium dendrite growths; asymmetrical reaction kinetics at battery nanoparticles; dual-mode lithium-brominel seawater flow battery; mixed ion-electron transfer kinetics of core-shell nanomaterials. In addition, he works in battery cycle life prediction. He has had several funded research projects on lithium ion and other batteries.
