Campus & Community

The Schaefer School of Engineering & Science Welcomes 21 New Faculty and Lecturers for the 2023-24 Academic Year

The Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. School of Engineering and Science (SES) at Stevens Institute of Technology is proud to welcome 16 new tenure stream and non-tenure stream faculty members and five lecturers for the 2023-24 academic year. The newest cohort of outstanding faculty includes researchers and instructors across disciplines, whose specializations range from artificial intelligence (AI) and computing to quantum engineering and science. With the continuation of its rapid hiring expansion plan, the recent SES onboarding brings the total number of new tenure stream and non-tenure stream faculty to 96 over the past six years.

As the Schaefer School continues to experience unprecedented growth both in its size and in its accomplishments, Lore E. Feiler Dean Jean Zu is firmly committed to prioritizing faculty well-being by providing resources and training to facilitate faculty development at all ranks, in addition to an academic environment that enables them to be inspiring and innovative educators, researchers and academic leaders.

“I am thrilled to welcome our new faculty on campus and have great confidence that their demonstrated teaching and research expertise will become extraordinary assets to our school and our students,” expressed Zu. “They join our existing collaborative and creative community of globally recognized experts and thought leaders who are dedicated to working together to design and build actionable solutions to complex global challenges.”

The recruitment of new instructors also allows the School of Engineering and Science to maintain a more uniform student-to-faculty ratio across departments, helping to enrich students’ learning experiences with individualized attention through authentic interactions and mentorship.

The new additions to the Schaefer School community are:

Department of Biomedical Engineering

Peter Popolo, Teaching Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Ph.D.: University of Iowa
Recent Affiliation: Stevens Institute of Technology
Specialization: Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) in machine learning and AI

Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

Jacob Gissinger, Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Ph.D.: University of Colorado, Boulder
Recent Affiliation: NASA Langley Research Center
Specialization: Characterization of high-performance polymeric and glassy soft materials and their composites using computational techniques

Benjamin Paren, Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Ph.D.: University of Pennsylvania
Recent Affiliation: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Specialization: Characterization of polymer and liquid electrolytes for application in batteries and fuel cells

Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology

Kwahun Lee, Assistant Professor, Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Ph.D.: Indiana University, Bloomington
Recent Affiliation: U.S. Naval Research Lab
Specialization: Inorganic nanomaterials, immune cell biology, biophysics, analytical chemistry

Department of Computer Science

William Eiers, Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Ph.D.: University of California, Santa Barbara
Recent Affiliation: University of California, Santa Barbara
Specialization: Software engineering, formal methods, software security

Mark Ho, Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Ph.D.: Brown University
Recent Affiliation: Princeton University
Specialization: Human-computer interaction, reinforcement learning, cognitive science

Zhaozhuo Xu, Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Ph.D.: Rice University
Recent Affiliation: Rice University
Specialization: Machine learning, randomized algorithms, on-device learning

Xiaodong Yu, Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Ph.D.: Virginia Tech
Recent Affiliation: Argonne National Laboratory
Specialization: Parallel, distributed and reconfigurable computing; computer systems; computer architecture

Zining Zhu, Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Ph.D.: University of Toronto
Recent Affiliation: University of Toronto
Specialization: Natural languages processing, explainable AI

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Joseph Helsing, Lecturer, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Ph.D.: University of North Texas
Recent Affiliation: Muhlenberg College

Md Abu Sayeed, Teaching Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Ph.D.: University of North Texas
Recent Affiliation: Eastern New Mexico University
Specialization: Machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), cyber physical systems, security and privacy in the IoT, embedded systems

Shirantha Welikala, Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Ph.D.: Boston University
Recent Affiliation: University of Notre Dame
Specialization: Cyber physical systems, network systems, control, optimization, AI

Bernard Yett, Teaching Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Ph.D.: Vanderbilt University
Recent Affiliation: Tennessee State University
Specialization: Digital system design, microprocessor systems, computational data structure and algorithms

Department of Mathematical Sciences

Hong Do, Lecturer, Mathematical Sciences
Ph.D.: Wayne State University
Recent Affiliation: University of North Carolina, Charlotte

Eric Ramos, Assistant Professor, Mathematical Sciences
Ph.D.: University of Wisconsin, Madison
Recent Affiliation: Bowdoin College
Specialization: Algebraic combinatorics and its application to representation theory, probability, algebraic topology, and group theory

Daniele Alessandrini, Lecturer, Mathematical Sciences
Ph.D.: Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa, Italy)
Recent Affiliation: Columbia University
Specialization: Differential geometry, geometric topology, geometry of surfaces

Matthew Romney, Lecturer, Mathematical Sciences
Ph.D.: University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Recent Affiliation: Stony Brook University
Specialization: Metric space geometry, analysis on metric spaces, geometry of surfaces

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Chaitanya Vallabh, Teaching Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Ph.D.: Clarkson University
Recent Affiliation: Stevens Institute of Technology
Specialization: Additive manufacturing, advanced manufacturing, structural health monitoring, process monitoring

Department of Physics

Matthew Coleman, Teaching Assistant Professor, Physics
Ph.D.: University of California, Santa Barbara
Recent Affiliation: Princeton University
Specialization: High energy astrophysics, computational fluid dynamics, accretion disks, supernovae

Samuel Hedemann, Lecturer, Physics
Ph.D.: Stevens Institute of Technology
Recent Affiliation: New York Institute of Technology
Specialization: Entanglement, quantum information and computation, quantum optics

Adam Overvig, Assistant Professor, Physics
Ph.D.: Columbia University
Recent Affiliation: City University of New York
Specialization: Physics, design principles, and applications of photonic and radiofrequency devices