Charles V. Schaefer Jr. School of Engineering & Science Welcomes 20 New Faculty for the 2021-2022 Academic Year

The Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. School of Engineering and Science at Stevens Institute of Technology has recruited 15 new tenure and tenure-track faculty members and five lecturers for the 2021-22 academic year. The latest group brings the total number of new tenure and tenure-track hires to 64 over the last four years—a record expansion for the school of engineering and science. The new faculty represent leading researchers and exceptional instructors, who promise to enhance both the school’s research profile and teaching excellency.

Zu welcomes each new faculty member to the Schaefer School and promises opportunity for growth, both in terms of individual career development, as well as new opportunities for their contributions to the school of engineering and science. “We are excited to have our new faculty on campus, and have great confidence that they will be extraordinary assets to our school,” said Zu. “They join our existing faculty of world-renowned experts and leaders in their fields, highlighting Stevens’ commitment to both cutting-edge research and supporting our growing student body, with a student-centric philosophy and the highest teaching standards. We will continue to support our faculty, and students, in every way we can.”

“Furthermore,” she continued, “our new hires will improve the student-to-faculty ratio, allowing for more individualized time for students to interact with instructors and have personalized time in the lab.”

The new faculty hail from storied research institutions such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Virginia Tech, University of Salford, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Max Planck Institute for Informatics.

They are as follows:

Department of Biomedical Engineering

Yu Gan, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Ph.D.: Columbia University
Recent Affiliation: University of Alabama
Specialization: Biomedical Image Processing/Analysis; Artificial Intelligence; Machine Learning

Peter Popolo, Lecturer, Biomedical Engineering
Ph.D.: University of Iowa
Recent Affiliation: Digital Health Consultant

Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering

Cheng Chen, Associate Professor, Nariman Farvardin Professor of Civil Engineering, Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering
Ph.D.: Northwestern University
Recent Affiliation: Virginia Tech
Specialization: Geotechnical Engineering; Computational Methods and Algorithms

An Wang, Assistant Professor, Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering
Ph.D.: University of Maryland, College Park
Recent Affiliation: University of Maryland, College Park
Specialization: Experimental Fluid Mechanics; Naval Hydrodynamics; Wave Impact on Structures

Karim Karam, Lecturer, Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering
Ph.D.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Recent Affiliation: Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi

Lloyd Scott, Lecturer, Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering
Ph.D.: University of Salford
Recent Affiliation: Technological University, Dublin

Department of Computer Science

Zumrut Akcam-Kibis, Teaching Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Ph.D.: University at Albany, SUNY
Recent Affiliation: The College of Saint Rose
Specialization: Natural Language Processing, Computational Linguistics, Data Mining

Michael Greenberg, Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Ph.D.: University of Pennsylvania
Recent Affiliation: Pomona College
Specialization: Programming Languages, Systems

Shudong Hao, Teaching Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science
Ph.D.: University of Colorado, Boulder
Recent Affiliation: Bard College at Simon’s Rock
Specialization: Natural Language Processing, Computer Science Education

Erisa Terolli, Teaching Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Ph.D.: Sapienza University of Rome
Recent Affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Informatics
Specialization: Data and Graph Mining, Information Retrieval

Ping Wang, Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Ph.D.: Virginia Tech
Recent Affiliation: Virginia Tech
Specialization: Data Science, Data Mining, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing

Philippe Meunier, Teaching Associate Professor, Computer Science
Ph.D.: Northeastern University
Recent Affiliation: BNU-HKBU United International College, China
Specialization: Theory of Programming Languages, Operating Systems; Networking

Samuel Kim, Teaching Professor, Computer Science
Ph.D.: Stevens Institute of Technology
Recent Affiliation: Stevens Institute of Technology (adjunct)
Specialization: Database Management Systems

Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology

Rahul Khade, Lecturer, Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Ph.D.: Stevens Institute of Technology
Recent Affiliation: Stevens Institute of Technology (postdoc)

Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

Alyssa Hensley, Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Ph.D.: Washington State University
Recent Affiliation: University of Toronto
Specialization: Connection between In Situ Chemical Composition and Structure of Heterogeneous Catalysts

Pin-Kuang Lai, Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Ph.D.: University of Minnesota
Recent Affiliation: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Specialization: Protein Design and Engineering; Mechanistic Study; Manufacturing for Biological Systems

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Xiaojiang (James) Du, Professor / Anson Wood Burchard Professor of Electrical Engineering, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Ph.D.: University of Maryland, College
Recent Affiliation: Temple University
Specialization: Security and Systems

Mahmoud Al-Quzwini, Senior Lecturer, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Ph.D.: Al-Nahrain University, Iraq
Recent Affiliation: Rowan University

Department of Mathematical Sciences

Hadi Safari Katesari, Teaching Assistant Professor, Mathematical Sciences
Ph.D.: Southern Illinois University
Recent Affiliation: Southern Illinois University
Specialization: Bayesian Statistics, Multivariate Time Series Analysis, Factor Analysis

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Christopher Sugino, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Ph.D.: Georgia Institute of Technology
Recent Affiliation: Georgia Institute of Technology
Specialization: Structural Dynamics and Elastic/Acoustic Wave Propagation, Linear/Nonlinear Vibrations

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