College of Science and Engineering hires 47 new faculty in two years
STEM experts from across the globe join the college’s 12 academic departments
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (11/21/2024) — In fall 2024, the University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering (CSE) welcomed 18 new faculty members—building on its growth of 26 new STEM experts last year. Three more faculty are expected to arrive later this academic year.
With 47 new faculty in the last two years, CSE is well on its way to meeting its goal of hiring 60 new faculty in three years.
The new science and engineering faculty on the Twin Cities campus over the two years include:
Emily Beverly is an assistant professor of earth sciences. Her research focuses on understanding environmental drivers of human and hominin evolution. Beverly uses stable isotopes and geochemistry to answer questions about past and future climates with a firm foundation in sedimentary geology and earth surface processes.
Rene Boiteau is an assistant professor of chemistry. He joins Minnesota from Oregon State University, where he held a joint faculty appointment in the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Much of his work is focused on developing analytical chemical approaches, especially mass spectrometry.
Jan-Niklas Boyn is an assistant professor of chemistry. His research interests lie in computational and theoretical chemistry, where he aims to develop multi-level computational tools that allow researchers to bridge different length and time scales.
Grace Bushnell is an assistant professor of biomedical engineering. Her work focuses on advancing biomaterials and animal models to investigate how the tissue microenvironment, particularly immune interactions, regulates breast cancer metastasis.
Yu Cao is a professor of electrical and computer engineering. His research includes neural-inspired computing, hardware design for on-chip learning, and reliable integration of nanoelectronics. Cao served as associate editor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’s monthly Transactions on CAD.
Zhu-Tian Chen is an assistant professor of computer science and engineering. His recent work focuses on enhancing human-data and human-AI interactions in both AR/VR environments—with applications in sports, data journalism, education, biomedical, and architecture.
Seongjin Choi is an assistant professor of civil engineering. He received his bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. He was a postdoctoral researcher at McGill University. His work involves using data analytics to draw valuable insights from urban mobility data and applying cutting-edge AI technologies in the field of transportation.
Ana del Val is an assistant professor of aerospace engineering and mechanics. Her research is focused on the development and application of stochastic methods to achieve robust predictive modeling of hypersonic and reacting flows.
Aryan Deshwal is an assistant professor of computer science and engineering. His research uses artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate scientific discovery and engineering design. In his final year as a Ph.D. candidate in computer science at Washington State University, he was invited to speak at the University of Minnesota computer science colloquium hosted by his current department.
Caiwen Ding is an associate professor of computer science and engineering. His interests include algorithm-system co-design of machine learning/artificial intelligence, machine learning for electronic design automation, and computer architecture.
Rachel Gelhar Humann is an incoming assistant professor of mechanical engineering. Her research focuses on developing and implementing nonlinear model-based control strategies for powered prosthetic legs, to improve generalizability of control methods across prosthesis users.
Archis Ghate is department head and professor of industrial and systems engineering. Prior to joining the University of Minnesota, he served as the Fluor Endowed Chair in Industrial Engineering at Clemson University and was a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. Ghate’s research focus includes optimization under uncertainty, Markov decision processes, and model-based reinforcement learning.
Hart Goldman is an assistant professor of physics. He studies the emergence of quantum states of matter where strong interactions and long-ranged entanglement play essential roles. Of special interest to him are exotic topological phases and strongly correlated gapless quantum matter.
Alexander “Alex” Grenning is an assistant professor of chemistry. He comes to Minnesota from the University of Florida, where he was a tenured faculty. He was a postdoctoral researcher at Boston University. His work is focused on chemical synthesis and drug discovery.
Gregory “Greg” Handy is an assistant professor of mathematics. As an applied mathematician and theoretical biologist, Handy’s research strives to use biological applications as inspiration to create new mathematical techniques, and to combine these techniques with classical approaches to examine the mechanisms driving biological processes.
Kade Head-Marsden is an assistant professor of chemistry. She joins the University of Minnesota from the faculty of Washington University in St. Louis. Her research group works in theoretical quantum chemistry with a primary focus on open quantum systems, which are small quantum systems whose properties and dynamics are driven by the surrounding environment.
Mike Hill is the Ordway Professor of Mathematics. Algebraic topology is his research focus. Before making the move to Minnesota, he was a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he was a member of the topology group. Prior to his appointment at UCLA, he served on the faculty of the University of Virginia, Harvard, and University of Virginia.
L. Jeff Hong is a professor of industrial systems and engineering. Before Minnesota, he held positions at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, City University of Hong Kong, and Fudan University. His research includes stochastic simulation, stochastic optimization, statistical machine learning, and financial risk management.
Jessica Hoover is a professor of chemistry. She joins the University of Minnesota from West Virginia University, where she has been a faculty member since 2012. Hoover’s interest in catalysis has been the focus of her work since her undergraduate studies.
Andrew Khalil is an assistant professor of biomedical engineering. His work seeks to leverage human pluripotent stem cells, genetic engineering, and gene therapy technologies to create functional immune cells with novel capabilities and to drive transformative advances in immuno-engineering and therapies for cancer, metabolic disorders, and age-related conditions.
Harman Kaur is an assistant professor of computer science and engineering—and a University of Minnesota alumna (2016 bachelor’s in computer science). Her research areas are human-centered artificial intelligence, explainability and interpretability, and hybrid intelligence systems. She is affiliated with the GroupLens Research Lab, a group of faculty and students in her department that’s focused on human computing interaction.
Yan Liu is an assistant professor of physics. He joins the University of Minnesota from the University of British Columbia, where he worked on the Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment. Liu’s main research interests are direct dark matter searches and neutrino physics.
Zirui “Ray” Liu is an assistant professor of computer science and engineering. His research interests lie in large-scale machine learning and machine learning system. He co-designs algorithm and system, aiming to scale-up and accelerate machine learning models.
Yulong Lu is an assistant professor of mathematics. His research lies at the intersection of applied and computational mathematics, statistics, and data sciences. His recent work is focused on the mathematical aspects of deep learning.
Ben Margalit is an assistant professor of physics and astronomy. As a theoretical astrophysicist, he studies the fundamental physics of star explosions, collisions and other examples of intergalactic violence such as a black hole passing near a galaxy and “shredding it to spaghetti.” As part of his job, Margalit works closely with observational astronomers in selecting the kinds of places to look for transient events.
Pedram Mortazavi is an assistant professor of civil engineering—and a licensed structural engineer in Canada. His interests lie in structural resilience, steel structures, large-scale testing, development of damping and isolation systems, advanced simulation methods, and hybrid simulation.
Shancong Mou is an assistant professor of industrial systems and engineering. He is interested in developing AI/ML techniques to fuse domain-specific knowledge and in-situ sensing data, to enhance the modeling and decision-making for complex systems.
Edgar Peña is an assistant professor of biomedical engineering—and a University of Minnesota alumnus (2017 Ph.D. in biomedical engineering). He is a neuromodulation scholar who is interested in vagus nerve stimulation. During his doctoral studies at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, he used computational models to optimize deep brain stimulation.
Gang Qiu is an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. His research focuses on novel low-dimensional materials for advanced electronics and quantum applications. His current interest includes employing topological materials for topological quantum computing.
Maru Sarazola is an assistant professor of mathematics. She joins Minnesota from Johns Hopkins University, where she was a J.J. Sylvester Assistant Professor. Her research is focused on algebraic topology—specifically, her interest lies in homotopy theory (a field that studies and classifies objects up to different notions of "sameness") and category theory (“the math of math,” which looks to abstract all structures to study their behavior).
Eric Severson is an associate professor of mechanical engineering—and University of Minnesota alumnus (2008 bachelor’s and 2015 Ph.D. in electrical engineering). He leads research in electric machines and magnetic levitation, with a renewed focus in addressing grand challenges in energy and sustainability through multidisciplinary collaborations. His interests include extreme efficiency, bearingless machines, flywheel energy storage, and electric power grid technology.
Kelsey Stoerzinger is an associate professor of chemical engineering and materials science. She studies the electrochemical transformation of molecules into fuels, chemical feedstocks, and recovered resources. Her research lab designs materials and processes for the storage of renewable electricity.
Nicholas Swanson-Hysell is an associate professor of earth and environmental sciences, and associate director of the Institute for Rock Magnetism. His research seeks to place quantitative constraints on the long-term evolution of Earth through integrating geophysical and geochemical data sets that are developed within a rigorous geologic context. A major focus of this research is on paleomagnetic and rock magnetic data sets.
Yogatheesan Varatharajah is an assistant professor of computer science and engineering—and a visiting scientist in neurology at the Mayo Clinic. His research lies broadly in machine learning for health. Prior to Minnesota, he was a research assistant professor of bioengineering at the University of Illinois and faculty affiliate for the Center for Artificial Intelligence Innovation with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.
Qianwen Wang is an assistant professor of computer science and engineering. Prior to Minnesota, Wang served as a post-doctoral researcher at Harvard University in the Department of Biomedical Informatics. As a visualization researcher, she created interactive visualization tools that enable humans to better interpret AI and generate insights from their data.
Lynn Walker is a professor—and the L.E. Scriven Chair in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. Previously, she was on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research focuses on developing the tools and fundamental understanding necessary to efficiently process soft materials and complex fluids. This expertise is being used to develop systematic approaches to incorporate sustainable feedstocks in consumer products.
Alexander “Alex” Watson is an assistant professor of mathematics—and former University of Minnesota postdoctoral researcher in the School of Mathematics. He works on mathematical models used to predict the electronic properties of materials, especially novel 2D materials such as graphene and twisted multilayer “moiré materials.”
Anna Weigandt is an assistant professor of mathematics. She comes to Minnesota from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was an instructor. Weigandt works in algebraic combinatorics, specifically Schubert calculus.
Michael Wilking is a professor of physics—and University of Minnesota alumnus (2001 bachelor’s in chemical engineering). He completed his post-doc at TRIUMF, Canada's national particle accelerator center. Wilking was part of the Stony Brook research team honored with the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.
Benjamin "Ben" Worsfold is an assistant professor of civil engineering—and a licensed professional engineer in both California and Costa Rica. His research interest lies in large-scale structural testing, finite element analysis of reinforced concrete structures, and anchoring to concrete.
Liyan Xie an assistant professor of industrial systems and engineering. Previously, she was on the faculty at Chinese University of Hong Kong in Shenzhen. Her research lies at the intersection of statistics, optimization, and machine learning, with a focus on sequential change detection, spatio-temporal data modeling, diffusion models, and their applications to engineering problems.
Xianghan Xu is an assistant professor of physics and astronomy. His research interests include quantum materials. As a member of the Cava Lab Solid State Chemistry Research Group at Princeton University, he explored emergent symmetry breaking, coupled ferroic orders, quantum magnetism, and complex electronic phases, including superconductivity.
Yue Yu is an assistant professor of aerospace engineering and mechanics. His recent projects include real-time trajectory optimization and game-theoretic coordination in multiagent systems, with an emphasis on applications in advanced air mobility and spacecraft control.
Katie (Yang) Zhao is an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. Her research interest resides in the intersection between Domain-Specific Acceleration Chip and Computer Architecture. In particular, her work centers around enabling AI-powered intelligent functionalities on resource-constrained edge devices.
Starting 2025
Ratul Das is an assistant professor of electrical engineering with expertise in power electronics, including integrated power management.
Hannah Kenagy is an assistant professor of chemistry, whose work includes multi-scale modeling of atmospheric chemical processes.
Melissa Ramirez is an assistant professor of chemistry, who works on experimental and computational approaches related to pharmaceutically relevant small molecules.