New Faculty Among Most Diverse Group to Join School
New Faculty 2014 Academic Year
We just added a dozen new faculty members, and we’re expanding with several additional searches this year.
More and more students are choosing the KU School of Engineering for the outstanding experience they receive in our classrooms and laboratories. And we’re responding by giving them access to great teachers and great researchers in fields that drive economic growth in Kansas, the Midwest and our nation.
The expansion is part of the school’s Building on Excellence Initiative that drives growth in faculty, facilities, discovery and enrollment.
Masoud K. Darabi
Assistant Professor, Department of Civil, Environmental & Architectural Engineering
Research expertise: Design of self-healing fatigue-resistant materials and durable infrastructures through cutting-edge technologies in computational mechanics and material science. Doctoral granting institution: Texas A&M University
Huazhen Fang
Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Research expertise: Dynamic systems and control; modeling, identification, estimation, and control for dynamic systems as well as the applications in energy management, environmental observing, manufacturing, and mechatronic systems. Doctoral granting institution: University of California, San Diego
Alexandra Kondyli
Assistant Professor, Department of Civil, Environmental & Architectural Engineering
Professor Kondyli earned her Ph.D. at the University of Florida, Gainesville. She most recently served as a postdoctoral associate at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Her research interests include driver behavior, traffic flow characteristics, and traffic operations. Doctoral granting institution: University of Florida, Gainesville
Xianglin Li
Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Professor Li earned his Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut. He most recently served as a senior scientific engineering associate at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His research interests include proton exchange membrane fuel cells, lithium-air batteries, multi-phase heat and mass transfer, thermodynamic analysis, and full fuel cycle analysis. Doctoral granting institution: University of Connecticut
Brian Lines
Acting Assistant Professor, Department of Civil, Environmental & Architectural Engineering
Professor Lines is a Ph.D. candidate at Arizona State University, Tempe. His research interests include strategic construction management and overcoming resistance to change. Doctoral granting institution: Arizona State University
Arghya Paul
Assistant Professor, Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
Professor Paul earned his Ph.D. at McGill University. He most recently served as a postdoctoral associate at the Harvard-MIT division of health sciences and technology. His research interests include biotherapeutic devices, biomimetic nanomaterials, regenerative tissue engineering, stem cell/material interface, "tissue-on-a-chip, "microfabrication, and biomolecular & genetic engineering. Doctoral granting institution: McGill University
Alessandro Salandrino
Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
a325s937@ku.edu
Professor Salandrino earned his Ph.D. at the University of Central Florida. He most recently served as a postdoctoral research scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include electromagnetics, optics, photonics, plasmonics and metamaterials, RF, and computational electrodynamics. Doctoral granting institution: University of Central Florida
Suzanne Shontz
Associate Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
Professor Shontz earned her Ph.D. at Cornell University. She most recently served as an assistant professor at Mississippi State University. Her research interests include computational- and data-enabled science and engineering, including parallel scientific computing with a focus on unstructured mesh, numerical optimization, model order reduction, and numerical linear algebra algorithms and their applications to fields such as medicine and electronic circuits. Doctoral granting institution: Cornell University
Juan Jose Bravo Suarez
Assistant Professor, Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
Professor Bravo Suarez earned his Ph.D. at the Industrial University of Santander, Colombia. He most recently served as a postdoctoral research scientist at the Acher Daniels Midland research facility in Lawrence, Kansas. His research interests focus on heterogeneous catalysis including advanced catalyst synthesis, reaction kinetics, and in situ spectroscopic studies for the development of catalysts and catalytic technologies for fuels and chemicals synthesis from bio-derived and alternative feedstocks. Doctoral granting institution: Industrial University of Santander, Colombia
Franklin Tao
Associate Professor, Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
f626t672@ku.edu
Professor Tao earned his Ph.D. at Princeton University. He most recently served as an assistant professor at the University of Notre Dame. His research interests include catalysis, chemical and energy transformations, nanoscience, and materials chemistry. Doctoral granting institution: Princeton University
Guanghui “Richard” Wang
Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
Professor Wang earned his Ph.D. at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He most recently served as an adjunct professor at Nanchang University, China. His research interests include computational vision, artificial intelligence, computer graphics & image processing, and robotics. Doctoral granting institution: University of Waterloo
Yang “Cindy” Yi
Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
Professor Yi earned her Ph.D. at Texas A&M University. She most recently served as an assistant professor and director of the Integrated Circuit & Systems Laboratory at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Her research interests include very large scale integrated circuits and systems, computer aided design, high speed and energy efficient circuit design, and neuromorphic architecture for brain-inspired computing systems. Doctoral granting institution: Texas A&M University