School of Systems & Enterprises Introduces Four New Faculty Members Starting in Fall 2021

The School of Systems & Enterprises (SSE) has announced the hiring of four new faculty members for fall 2021. In its continuous efforts to advance student success and research with a positive impact on community and society, the SSE welcomes Hao Chen, Ying Wang Ph.D., Eman AlOmar and Zhongyuan (Annie) Yu to its leading systems science and engineering faculty. 

Bringing expertise in space systems and space logistics engineering, Internet of Things (IoT) applications in healthcare, machine learning and software, the new faculty members will directly aid the SSE’s quest to provide world-class systems education and groundbreaking research.

“Our new faculty are very impressive. They are coming to Stevens with an education and background on par with some of the best places I’ve ever been. I am excited to welcome them to SSE this coming fall,” said Dean Yehia Massoud. “In our school, we’ve been looking at other applications that could benefit from systems engineering. In our strategic plan, we identified three important areas: healthcare systems, intelligent transportation and smart cities — but we’re not stopping there. The new faculty that we are bringing on board this fall, and the others who’ve joined recently, will really play a significant role in how we are building our future.”

The new SSE faculty for fall 2021 are:

Hao Chen, Assistant Professor: Hao Chen comes to Stevens from Georgia Institute of Technology, where he is getting his doctoral degree in the School of Aerospace Engineering. Hao also holds a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research will strengthen the SSE’s space systems pedagogy and research as his research focuses on the development of mathematical optimization frameworks to resolve emerging challenges in space logistics and policy, enable space resource utilization and stimulate space commercialization. He is the Conferences Sub-Committee Chair of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Space Logistics Technical Committee.    

Ying Wang, Associate Professor: Ying Wang received her Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Previously the lead engineer of 5G and Industry 4.0 at Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) and Virginia Tech, as well as a Senior Wireless Design Engineer at Apple and a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff (DMTS) at Verizon, Ying brings robust industry experience to the SSE. Her background in industry and academia is bolstered by her interdisciplinary knowledge in health informatics, software engineering and data mining. Ying is also noteworthy for holding several patents in wireless artificial intelligence (AI), healthcare, IoT and cognitive radio. Her primary research interests include the application of wireless and IoT technologies in healthcare applications and content-aware, edge-centered medical decision support systems and telemedicine networks.

Eman AlOmar, Assistant Professor: Eman AlOmar joins Stevens from Rochester Institute of Technology, where she is getting her doctoral degree in Computing and Information Sciences. Eman’s research interests rest at the intersection of software engineering and machine learning with a focus on different software engineering areas such as software refactoring, technical debt and documentation. Eman is fluent in machine learning, data mining, large data analytics, empirical software engineering and natural language processing for software engineering solutions. Her collaborations with national and international researchers and industry leaders have resulted in ACM and IEEE publications in leading software engineering platforms.

Zhongyuan (Annie) Yu, Teaching Associate Professor: Zhongyuan (Annie) Yu brings more than 10 years of extensive software prototype developing expertise and five-plus years of teaching experience to the Teaching Associate Professorship, which extends her involvement with the SSE. Prior to her appointment as Teaching Associate Professor, Annie was a Senior Research Scientist and a Research Assistant Professor in the school. To date, Annie’s work has led her to build smart and interactive data-driven decision support systems. Her current research centers on understanding and managing complex systems in healthcare settings and defense acquisitions. Annie’s ongoing research on how organizational processes, advanced techniques and technologies and policy affect software development and system performance aligns with the SSE’s mission to address complex sociotechnical systems issues.

Other faculty who have joined the School of Systems & Enterprises over the past two years:

Ting Liao Ph.D., Assistant Professor: Ting Liao Ph.D., comes to the SSE from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University, where she earned her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering specializing in design methodology and mechatronics. She earned her Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her current research is built upon the concept of user-centered design and crosses disciplinary boundaries involving engineering design, experimental psychology and data science. In addition, Ting has been active in fostering diversity and inclusion in the local community.

Oluwafemi Richard Oyeleke Ph.D., Assistant Professor: Richie Oyeleke arrives at Stevens from Iowa State University, where he earned his doctoral degree in computer science. His research interests span cutting-edge areas in computer science and gerontechnology, which include smart health analytics, human-centered computing, software systems safety, optimal aging and digital health systems. He was a member of the program committee for the 2020 IEEE Digital Health as a Service Symposium (DHAASS), co-located with the 2020 IEEE World Congress on Services. Oluwafemi is also currently a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). 

Changyue Song Ph.D., Assistant Professor: Changyue Song joins the SSE from currently the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, where he earned his Ph.D. in industrial & systems engineering. Song also holds a master’s degree in statistics, conferred by UW-Madison. His research interest lies in data analytics and system informatics with a focus on developing advanced data science methodologies for status inference and prediction. He is the recipient of the 2019 INFORMS QSR Section Best Referred Paper Award, the Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship, the Mary G. and Joseph Natrella Scholarship and the Campus-Wide Teaching Assistant Award.

Feng Liu Ph.D., Assistant Professor: Dr. Feng Liu comes to Stevens after serving as a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard Medical School and a research affiliate at the Neuroscience Statistics Research Lab at MIT. His research focus includes brain imaging, medical informatics, renewable energy, machine learning and dynamic systems. He is a past winner of the Best Paper Award at the 11th International Conference of Brain Informatics in 2018 and the winner of the Best Paper Award of INFORMS Data Analytics Society in 2019. Dr. Liu is an active reviewer for multiple journals and conferences. He has also served as a guest editor for the Brain Informatics journal.

Philip Odonkor, Assistant Professor: Dr. Odonkor joins SSE after completing his doctorate and master’s in mechanical engineering and a bachelor's in mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University at Buffalo. His research interests include developing and using data-driven methodologies to enable efficient and sustainable energy use within built environments, with the goal of enabling smart cities. He received the 2019 SUNY Chancellor’s Award and was a Dean's Graduate Achievement award winner at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Sang Won Bae, Assistant Professor: Dr. Bae arrives at Stevens from Carnegie Mellon University where she was a systems faculty and a postdoctoral researcher in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute. She received her Ph.D. in cognitive science and engineering. Dr. Bae’s research is focused on using smart technology to develop, deploy and evaluate new approaches to the human obstacles surrounding widespread everyday adoption of ubiquitous sensing and intelligent computing technologies. She has received several grants and awards, including the R21 grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Mehmet Gunes, Associate Professor: Dr. Gunes comes to Stevens from the University of Nevada, Reno where was an associate professor of computer science and engineering. He received his doctorate in computer science from the University of Texas at Dallas. While pursuing research problems in cybersecurity, internet measurements and network science, he employed various methodologies and tools including big data, data mining, high performance computing, machine learning and statistics. Dr. Gunes’ research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, and Amazon AWS.

Onur Asan, Associate Professor: Dr. Onur Asan completed his Ph.D. in industrial and systems engineering at University of Wisconsin-Madison, specializing in human factors and human-computer interaction. Dr. Asan's research focuses on application of theory, methods and design from the discipline of human factors engineering and human computer interaction to improve socio-technical change in health care.

A. Emrah Bayrak, Assistant Professor: Dr. Bayrak’s research focuses on bridging computational methods and human cognition to develop human-computer collaboration architectures for the design and control of smart products and systems. He is particularly interested in developing artificial intelligence systems that can effectively collaborate with humans considering unique capabilities of humans and computational systems.