Jonsson School National Research Awards

Dr. Giacomo Valerio Iungo — 2021: National Science Foundation  — CAREER: Scalar Transport in High Reynolds Number Boundary Layer with Heterogenous Roughness and Source Flux: Modeling Marine Aerosol in Coastal Regions. Iungo is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. His research interests include experimental fluid mechanics with applications to power harvesting from turbulent flows.

Dr. Tyler Holt Summers — 2021: National Science Foundation  — CAREER: Data-Driven Control of Dynamical Networks: Robustness, Risk, and Network Architectures. Summers is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. His research interests include feedback control and optimization in complex dynamic networks; emphasizing theoretical tools and computational methods and driven by applications to electric power networks and distributed robotics.

Dr. Shiyi Wei — 2021: National Science Foundation  — CAREER: Improving the Practicality of Configurable Static Analysis Tools through Analysis, Testing, Refinement and Adaptation. Wei is an assistant professor of computer science. His research interests include program analysis, software engineering, programming languages and software security.

Dr. Qing Gu — 2020: National Science Foundation  — CAREER: Environmentally Stable Electrically Pumped Perovskite Laser. Gu is an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. Her research interests include experimental realization of active nanophotonic devices such as micro- and nanolasers; nanoLEDs and gain-assisted metamaterials; novel optical cavity configuration; and integrated photonic circuits.

Dr. Jie Zhang — 2020: Office of Naval Research  — (YIP) Deep Learning-based Reliability and Resilience Enhancement of Future Navy Ships and Their Integration into Power Networks Under Extreme Events. Zhang is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. His research interests include multidisciplinary design optimization; complex engineered systems; power and energy systems; renewable energy; grid modernization; big data analytics; and probabilistic design.

Dr. Kyle Fox — 2020: National Science Foundation — CAREER: Exploiting Topology in Graph Algorithm Design. Fox is an assistant professor of computer science. His research interests include algorithms and theory; computational geometry and topology; and combinatorial optimization and graph algorithms.

Dr. Yang Hu — 2020: National Science Foundation — CAREER: Rethinking the Architectures and Systems for Autonomous Driving Infrastructure. Hu is an assistant professor of electrical engineering. His research interests include computing and communication system support for edge applications, such as vRAN, autonomous driving and edge intelligence.

Dr. Feng Chen — 2019: National Science Foundation  —  CAREER: SPARK: A Theoretical Framework for Discovering Complex Patterns in Big Attributed Networks. Chen is an associate professor of computer science. His research interests include anomaly, event and fraud detection; spatial-temporal data analysis; big data analytics; graph mining and network science; machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Dr. Golden Kumar — 2019: National Science Foundation  — CAREER: Understanding of Intrinsic Size-Effects in Deformation of Metallic Glasses. Kumar is an associate professor of mechanical engineering. His research interests include nanomanufacturing, metallic glasses, nanomechanics, surface engineering, phase transformations and photothermal properties.

Dr. Qing Gu — 2019: Army Research Office  — (YIP) Optoelectrics: Ultrafast Directly Modulated NanoLED for On-chip Optical Interconnect. Gu is an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. Her research interests include experimental realization of active nanophotonic devices such as micro- and nanolasers; nanoLEDs and gain-assisted metamaterials; novel optical cavity configuration; and integrated photonic circuits.

Dr. Xianming (Simon) Dai — 2019: Army Research Office  — (YIP) Water-harvesting and Self-cleaning Air/liquid Independent Surfaces. Dai is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. His research interests include heat transfer, nanofabrication, microfluidics, mechanobiology and clean water.

Dr. Ann Majewicz Fey — 2019: National Science Foundation  — CAREER: Human-Centric Control for Teleoperated Surgical Robots. Fey is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. Her research interests include robotics; dynamic systems and control; medical and surgical robots; teleoperation; and haptics.

Dr. William Vandenberghe — 2018 Defense Threat Reduction Agency  — (YIP) Performing Ultra-Low-Power Matrix-Vector Multiplications using Topological-Insulators. Vandenberghe is an assistant professor of materials science and engineering. His research interests include the study of electron transport at the nanoscale using theoretical methods, specifically, two-dimensional materials and topological insulators for new devices.

Dr. Cong Liu — 2018: National Science Foundation  — CAREER: D3: Addressing Emerging Data-Induced Challenges in Embedded and Real-Time Systems. Liu is an assistant professor of computer science. His research interests include real-time and embedded systems, cyber-physical systems and mobile and cloud computing.

Dr. Benjamin Raichel — 2018: National Science Foundation  — CAREER: AF: Giving Form to Data with a Geometric Scaffold. Raichel is an assistant professor of computer science. His research interests include algorithms and theory, discrete and computational geometry and randomized and approximation algorithms.

Dr. Taylor Ware, Bioengineering — 2018 National Science Foundation  — CAREER: Designing Microscale, Shape-Morphing Liquid Crystal Elastomers as Tissue Adhesives. Ware is an assistant professor of bioengineering. His research interests include liquid crystal materials; flexible and stretchable electronics; biomaterials and the interfacing of these technologies.

Dr. Chadwin Delin Young – 2017: National Science Foundation – (CAREER) Fundamental Electronic Device Performance and Reliability Investigation on Chalcogenide – and Oxide-based N- and P-type Materials for Large Area/Flexible Electronics. Young is an assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He has participated in several Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) conferences and workshops and has served as a guest editor for IEEE Trans. Device and Materials Reliability – IIRW. His research interests focus on electrical characterization methodologies, reliability characterization methodologies, solid state device physics, electrical properties of materials, MOS modeling (quantum effects, etc.), nanotechnology, flexible electronics, and future energy needs (renewable, low power operation, etc.).

Dr. Vibhav Giridhar Gogate – 2017: National Science Foundation – (CAREER) Fast, Accurate Estimation and Prediction using Markov Logics. Gogate is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science. He has participated in the UAI 2016 Probabilistic Interference Evaluation. His research interests include machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), data mining, and big data.

Dr. Tyler Holt Summers – 2017: US Army Research Office – (YIP) Quantifying network controllability and observability using optimal control and estimation metrics. Summers is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. His research interests focus in feedback control and optimization in complex dynamical networks, emphasizing theoretical tools and computational methods and driven by applications to electric power networks and distributed robotics.

Dr. Robert D. Gregg — 2017: National Science Foundation — (CAREER) Recovering and Enhancing Natural Locomotion in Changing Conditions with Powered Lower-Limb Prostheses and Orthoses. Gregg is an assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering and the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Dr. Taylor Hutchins Ware— 2017: US Air Force Office of Scientific Research — (YIP) Designing Microstructure in Ordered Polymer Actuators. Ware is an assistant professor of bioengineering. He is also a member of several professional societies, co-inventor of five patents, and author or co-author of more than 40 scientific publications. His research interests include liquid crystal materials, flexible and stretchable electronics, biomaterials, and the interfacing of these technologies.

Dr. Kenneth Leon Hoyt – 2016: National Institutes of Health – (K25) Molecular Ultrasound Imaging of Cancer Response to Antiangiogenic Therapy . Hoyt is an associate professor in the Department of Bioengineering. He is a member of the Technical Standards Committee of the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM) and Technical Committee member of the Quantitative Imaging Biomarkers Alliance of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). His research interests focus on cancer research, medical imaging, signal and image processing, and ultrasound.

Dr. Alvaro Cardenas – 2016: National Science Foundation – (CAREER) Practical Control Engineering Principles to Improve the Security and Privacy of Cyber-Physical Systems . Cardenas is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science. He is a member of the Cyber Security and Education Institute. His research focuses on cyber-physical systems and IoT security and privacy, network intrusion detection, and wireless networks. He is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering. He is a member of the Cyber Security and Education Institute. His research focuses on cyber-physical systems and IoT security and privacy, network intrusion detection, and wireless networks.

Dr. Ryan Patrick McMahan – 2016: National Science Foundation – (CAREER) Leveraging the Virtualness of Virtual Reality for More-Effective Training. McMahan is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science. He is an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Review Editor for Frontiers in Virtual Environments, and has sat as co-chair for several IEEE Virtual Reality Conferences and Symposium. His research interests focus on virtual reality (VR), training transfer, 3D user interfaces (3DUIs), and human-computer interaction (HCI).

Dr. Carlos Alberto Busso – 2015: National Science Foundation – (CAREER) Advanced Knowledge Extraction of Affective Behaviors during Natural Human Interaction. Busso is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering. He has held many chair positions, including Program Chair for ICMI and Publicity Chair of Interspeech last year. His research interests are in digital signal processing, speech and video processing, and multimodal interfaces and his current research includes modeling and understanding human communication and interaction, with applications to automated recognition and synthesis to enhance human-machine interfaces.

Dr. Fatemeh Hassanipour – 2015: National Science Foundation – (CAREER) Biofluid Dynamics of the Human Breast: Characterization and Fluid-Structure Interaction. Hassanipour is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. She has participated in several conferences, including “An Experimental Study on Human Milk Viscosity”, in November 2016. Her research focuses on heat transfer and fluid mechanics with applications in energy conservation, storage, and management, electronic cooling, health and bioengineering (modeling and simulation of biomechanical systems).

Dr. Arif S. Malik – 2015: National Science Foundation – (CAREER) Highly-Efficient Dynamic Prediction Models for Quality Improvement in Cold Rolling. Malik is an associate professor of mechanical engineering. He has organized several conferences, including “Engineering Brighter Futures for Autism” last year. His research focuses on computation mechanics, uncertainty analysis, reliability-based design optimization, rolling of metal alloys, micro air vehicle wing design, and laser peening.

Dr. Yonas Tegegn Tadesse – 2015: Office of Naval Research – (YIP) Musculoskeletal System Design, Fabrication and Modeling for Robotic Systems. Tadesse is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. His research interests focus on humanoid robotics, emerging applications of smart materials, sensors, and actuators, mechatronic system, multimodal energy harvesting, modeling, controls and biomimetics.

Dr. Majid Minary-Jolandan – 2015: Office of Naval Research – (YIP) Towards Advanced Nanoscale Additive Manufacturing (AM) of Metals: A Fundamental Theoretical, Multi-Physics Simulation and in situ Electron Microscopy Approach. Minary-Jolandan is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. His research focuses on multifunctional materials, bioinspired materials, nanomanufacturing, advanced manufacturing, nanobiomechanics, and nanomaterials.

Dr. Andrian Marcus – 2015: National Science Foundation – (CAREER) Management of Unstructured Information During Software Evolution. Marcus is a professor in the Department of Computer Science in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering. He currently serves on the editorial board of the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, the Empirical Software Engineering Journal (Springer), and the Journal of Software: Evolution and Process (John Wiley and Sons). His research focuses on software engineering, with focus on software evolution and program comprehension.

Dr. Bilal Akin – 2015: National Science Foundation – (CAREER) Real-Time Fault Diagnosis and Failure Prognosis of Next Generation Power Electronics Systems. Akin is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering. He is a Senior Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Member. His research focuses on fault diagnosis and condition monitoring of power electronics components and drive systems; design, control, and diagnosis of electric motors and drives; power electronics, digital power control and management; and applications of control theory, machine learning, and signal processing to energy conversion systems.

Dr. Majid Minary-Jolandan – 2014: US Air Force Office of Scientific Research – (YIP) Lessons from Bone to Bioinspired Tough and Self-Remodeling Aerospace Materials. Minary-Jolandan is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. His research focuses on multifunctional materials, bioinspired materials, nanomanufacturing, advanced manufacturing, nanobiomechanics, and nanomaterials.

Dr. Leonidas Bleris – 2014: National Science Foundation – (CAREER) Versatile Transcription Activator-like Effector Libraries for Genome-wide Screens. Bleris is an associate professor with the Department of Bioengineering. He has served with the Board of Mathematical Sciences and their applications and since 2008 has served as an Independent Expert with the European Commission under the “Science, Economy and Society” directorate. His research has focused on systems biology, mammalian synthetic biology and genome editing.

Dr. Walter Everett Voit – 2013: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency – (YFA) Smart polymer devices for chronic multifascicular microstimulation. Voit is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He is involved with Community Outreach: Materials Engineering, Technology and Science (COMETS) and consults with TriQuint, and is also a former member of the McDermott Faculty, Materials Research society, TMS, as well as the founder and former CTO of Syzygy Memory Plastics. His research interests focus on shape memory polymers, polymer manufacturing, ionizing radiation, thermomechanical properties, and biopolymer mechanics.

Dr. Siavash Pourkamali Anaraki – 2013: National Science Foundation – (CAREER) Thermally Actuated Nanomechanical Resonators and Self-Sustained Oscillators. Anaraki is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He holds several issued patents and pending patent applications in the areas of silicon micro/nanomechanical resonators and filters and nanofabrication technologies, some of which have been licensed to major players in the semiconductor industry. His research focuses on electro-thermal nanomechanical actuation, M/NEMS resonators and filters, nanomechanical resonant sensors, integrated silicon-based MEMS and microsystems, and micromachining and nanofabrication technologies.

Dr. Robert D. Gregg – 2013: National Institutes of Health – (DP2) Phase-based Control of Locomotion for High-Performance Prostheses and Orthoses. Gregg is an assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering and the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He is also the Director of Locomotor Control Systems Lab. He is the Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Robotics, a conference editorial board member for IEEE Control Systems Society, and a current review panelist for the National Science Foundation (NSF). His research focuses on the control mechanisms of human locomotion with applications to wearable and autonomous robots.

Dr. Robert D. Gregg – 2013: Burroughs Wellcome Fund Agency – Career Award at the Scientific Interface. Gregg is an assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering and the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He is also the Director of Locomotor Control Systems Lab. He is the Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Robotics, a conference editorial board member for IEEE Control Systems Society, and a current review panelist for the National Science Foundation (NSF). His research focuses on the control mechanisms of human locomotion with applications to wearable and autonomous robots.

Dr. Xiaohu Guo – 2012: National Science Foundation – (CAREER) Spectral Deformable Models: Theory and Applications. Guo is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science. He is currently on the journal editorial board for Graphical Models and has participated in several conferences as a chair, co-chair, or member level. His research focuses on mesh generation, centroidal voronoi tessellation, spectral geometric analysis, deformable models, GPU algorithms, 3D and 4D medical image analysis.

Dr. Kevin W. Hamlen – 2011: National Science Foundation – (CAREER) Language-based Security for Polymorphic Malware Protection. Hamlen is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science. He is also a Senior Technical Advisor of UTD’s Cyber Security Research and Education Institute. His research focus concerns the field of language-based security, which leverages techniques from programming language theory and compilers to enforce software security.

Dr. Hoi Lee – 2011: National Science Foundation – (CAREER) Capacitor-Assisted Design Paradigm for Future Generations of High-Power-Density High-Power-Efficiency Power Management and Delivery. Lee is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I (TCAS-I). He serves as the Chair of Power Management Technical Sub-Committee of the IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference and the technical program committee members of the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) and the IEEE International Symposium on Power Semiconductors and ICs (ISPSD). His research focus includes analog integrated circuits and power management integrated circuits.

Dr. Dongsheng Brian Ma – 2010: National Science Foundation – (CAREER) Analog Computation Based Real-Time Global Power Management: From Devices to Multi-Core Systems. Ma is the Erik Jonsson Distinguished Chair in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He serves on the Technical Committee of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductor (ITRS), as well as an Executive Committee and Thrust Leader in Energy Efficiency at SRC TxACE Center. His research focuses on integrated power electronics, analog and mixed signal circuit design, and renewable energy harvesting and management.

Dr. Wenchuang Hu – 2010: National Science Foundation – (CAREER) Molecular Scale Electronic Biosensor for Single Molecule Sensitivity & High Specificity. Hu is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is an active reviewer for prestigious journals and national funding programs. His current research aims to develop CMOS based nano-sensor chips to detect biochemical molecules and miniature diagnostic system using mobile phones.

Dr. Yang Liu – 2009: National Science Foundation – (CAREER) Using Rich Information from Speech and Text for Meeting Summarization. Liu is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science. She has served as an Associate Editor for several publications, including her current position of ACM Transactions on Asian Language Information Processing. Her research interests focus on spoken language processing, speech recognition and understanding, natural language processing, identification of speech and language disorder, and machine learning in speech/language processing.

Dr. Murat Kantarcioglu – 2009: National Science Foundation – (CAREER) An Integrated Approach for Efficient Privacy Preserving Distributed Data Analytics. Kantarcioglu is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science. Most recently, he has participated as a Program Committee Co-chair or Committee Member in several conferences. His research focuses on creating technologies that can efficiently extract useful information from any data without sacrificing privacy or security.

Dr. Balakrishnan Prabhakaran – 2003: National Science Foundation – (CAREER) Animation Databases. Prabhakaran is a professor of Computer Science. Currently, he is the Editor-in-Chief of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Special Interest Group on Multimedia (SIGMM) web magazine, member of the editorial board of Multimedia Systems Journal (Springer) and Multimedia Tools and Applications Journal (Springer). His research focuses on video and healthcare data analytics, streaming 3D video, animations, deformable 3D models, content protection and authentication of multimedia objects, Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees for streaming multimedia data in wireless ad hoc and mesh networks, and collaborative virtual environments.