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

m-darabi@ku.edu

785-864-4473

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

h124f116@ku.edu

785-864-2984

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

akondyli@ku.edu

785-864-6521

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

x960l599@ku.edu
 

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

b779l640@ku.edu

785-864-2891

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

arghyapaul@ku.edu
 

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

s906s230@ku.edu
 

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

jjbravo@ku.edu

785-864-1632

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

g925w596@ku.edu

785-864-8840

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

y631y347@ku.edu
 

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