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WPI Welcomes 48 New Full-Time Faculty Members

Researchers and educators joining the university include a new head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a new head of the Department of Humanities and Arts
Media Contact
October 30, 2019

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) welcomed 48 new full-time educators and researchers to its faculty ranks this year, including two new department heads.

The new faculty class includes Kathryn M. Moncrief, the Paris Fletcher Distinguished Professor of Humanities and head of the Department of Humanities and Arts, and Carrick Eggleston, professor and head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Here are all of the full-time faculty members of 2019–20:

Mihnea (Mike) Stefan Andrei is a postdoctoral scholar in mathematics. A 2014 WPI alumnus,  he earned his BS in actuarial mathematics and his MS in financial mathematics at WPI before receiving his PhD in statistics and applied probability from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He worked as a teaching associate and a teaching assistant and was a peer learning assistant while at WPI.

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Crystal H. Brown is an assistant teaching professor in the Department of Social Science and Policy Studies. She comes to WPI with experience as a sole instructor at Western Oregon University, where she taught courses in U.S. U.S. government, human rights, and international relations. She has given presentations on the complexities of immigration, and on refugees and terrorism. She is dedicated to showing students the role politics plays in technological development and migration and gained her interest in international issues from serving in the U.S. Peace Corps in Bulgaria. She is a Fulbright Schuman Fellow and earned her PhD in political science with a focus in international relations and comparative politics at the University of Oregon.

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Floyd Brownewell, Jr. is a professor of practice in the Department of Biology and Biotechnology. He comes to WPI from General Electric, where he spent eight years as a validation and verification engineer,product quality leader, and analytical lab leader. He also worked at Momentive Performance Materials as a quality control chemistry leader and a quality control laboratory leader. In the academic arena, Brownewell modernized the pharmaceutical sciences curriculum at Albany School of Pharmacy. He earned his master’s in education and secondary physical sciences from Vermont’s Johnson State College, and his PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Vermont. He also was a postdoctoral research associate at Stanford University.

Kenny Ching is an assistant professor in the Foisie Business School. An economist, he comes to WPI from University College London in the United Kingdom, where he was assistant professor of strategy and entrepreneurship in the School of Management. He also has been a visiting researcher in the Pediatrics Department at the University of California, San Francisco. He was awarded three MIT fellowships, and won three teaching awards while in London. He has worked as a visiting economist and data scientist in the U.S., and as an investment manager for a Singapore-based early-stage venture capital firm. He earned an MS in management, an MS in technology and policy, and a PhD in management at MIT.

Gonzalo Contador is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Mathematical Sciences. A mathematical statistician, he comes to WPI from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he was a lecturer and teaching assistant in the department of statistics. Before that, he was a lecturer in the school of engineering at the University of Chile in Santiago. He received his master’s in mathematics and his PhD in statistics from the University of Wisconsin, and is a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship.

Patrick H. Crowe is an instructor and lecturer in the Department of Humanities and Arts. A WPI graduate (Class of 2011), he returns after a career in mechanical engineering, specializing in industrialized indoor farming, and sprinkler and food processing equipment design. He also was a fire protection engineer, performing Nuclear Regulatory Commission audits of nuclear power stations.

John-Michael Davis is an assistant teaching professor in the Interdisciplinary and Global Studies Division. Before coming to WPI, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the geography department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He has been published in 13 journals, including “The Professional Geographer” and “International Journal of Cancer.” He has received multiple grants from the Swedish International Development Agency, USAID, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. With a bachelor’s degree in psychology, he received a master’s in environmental studies from Israel’s Ben Gurion University and a master’s in integrated water resources management from McGill University. He earned his PhD in geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Joseph Doiron is an assistant teaching professor in the Interdisciplinary and Global Studies Division. He comes to WPI from Arizona State University where he was a Fulton Postdoctoral Scholar in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. Prior to that, he spent four years as a Glenn Fellow in the School of Education at Boston University. He was a Fulbright student researcher at the William J. Fulbright Organization in Albania and has extensive industry experience, working as an independent consultant, a director of research, and a foreign language teacher. He received his master’s in German studies from Tufts University and his EdD from BU.

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Holger Droessler is an assistant professor of history. Before coming to WPI, he was a history lecturer at Smith College and taught at Bard College and Tufts University. He is a historian of 19th- and 20th-century U.S. history, with a special focus on imperialism, capitalism, and the Pacific Islands. He received his PhD in the history of American civilization from Harvard and his master’s in American cultural history from Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. He is the recipient of the Obama Dissertation Prize, and a Fulbright scholarship. He currently is working on a book about civilian workers for the U.S. military from the time of the Civil War to the Iraq War.

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Carrick Eggleston is a professor and head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Prior to joining WPI, he was head of the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Wyoming. He did his postdoc work at ETH Zurich, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He has received a U.S. patent for a hydrothermal atomic force microscope. He also received a Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship, as well as a Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society Interdisciplinary Fellowship. He has received more than $5 million in research funding over his career, and currently has a $500,000 grant from NASA to study the formation of perchlorate on Mars. He has received grants from the U.S. Department of Energy and is an NSF CAREER award recipient. After briefly working in the oilfields of West Texas, he earned his PhD in applied earth sciences at Stanford University.

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Michael Engling is an assistant teaching professor in computer science. He was most recently associate director for graduate programs in computer science at Stevens Institute of Technology, where he served as supervisor of curricular practical training and lectured on algorithms, computational complexity, discrete structures, and the theory of computation. He taught mathematics at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Along with his wife, Joey, he is a Volunteer Crew Leader for Friends of Acadia in Bar Harbor, Maine, where he spends summers in and around Acadia National Park raking leaves, maintaining hiking trails, and getting mud on his boots.

 

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Siamak Ghorbani Faal is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Mathematical Sciences. A WPI alumnus (graduate Class of 2018), he was an adjunct teaching professor and laboratory instructor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences and an instructor and teaching assistant in the Academic and Research Computing Group at WPI. He has industry experience working as a mechanical and mechatronics system engineer. He has more than a dozen peer-reviewed publications and founded and served as the president of Lecture, an organization with a focus on multidisciplinary learning and teaching at WPI.

 

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Natalie Farny is an assistant professor in the Department of Biology and Biotechnology. She joined WPI in 2013 as an adjunct teaching professor, an assistant teaching professor and an associate teaching professor. She completed her PhD in cell and developmental biology at Harvard University and performed her postdoctoral research at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the Molecular Medicine program. She has published 17 articles in journals, including “Nature Medicine,” “Cell,” and “Genes and Development.” In 2017 she was on a team of WPI faculty that received an NSF ADVANCE Adaptation grant for work related to representing women in STEM at WPI.

 

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Janice Kooken is an assistant research professor in the Department of Social Science and Policy Studies. She comes to WPI from St. John’s University in Jamaica, N.Y., where she was an adjunct associate professor, teaching advanced education, research methods and data analysis. She was a teaching assistant and then an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut. She has been published in multiple journals, including the “Journal of Experimental Education.” The recipient of a Harvard Strategic Data Fellowship, she received her master’s in teaching secondary mathematics from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and her PhD in educational psychology from the University of Connecticut.

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Adam C. Lammert is an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Before joining WPI, he spent four years as a technical staff scientist in the Bioengineering Systems & Technologies Group at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory. He holds an adjunct assistant professor appointment at the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions, and previously was a visiting assistant professor in the Computer Science Department at Swarthmore College. He has received grants from the U.S. Army and the NSF, as well as a $1.92 million grant from the Department of Defense. He has an interdisciplinary background in cognitive science, linguistics and neuroscience; he holds a master’s degree in computer science from North Carolina State University and a PhD in computer science from the University of Southern California.

Shana Lessing is an instructor and lecturer in the Department of Humanities and Arts. Prior to joining WPI, she was a visiting assistant professor at State University of New York at Potsdam teaching medical anthropology and human sexuality. Before that she spent seven years as a graduate teaching fellow and an adjunct lecturer at Lehman College in the Bronx. At Lehman, she taught a course on the invisible wounds of war and the politics of religious freedom in America. She received her master’s in religion from Columbia University, and is expected to receive her PhD in anthropology from the City University of New York. She received a Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant from the NSF.

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Greg Lewin is an assistant teaching professor in the Robotics Engineering Program. Before joining WPI, he spent seven years as a lecturer and assistant professor at the University of Virginia, where he directed the Technology Leaders Program. While there, he won several teaching awards, and led capstone design teams in electromechanical systems, mechatronics, robotics, and engineering. He was a postdoc at the University of Southern Denmark, where he collaborated with several European universities on the design of biomimetic sensor systems and robotic demonstrators. He received his master’s and PhD in mechanical and aerospace engineering from the University of Virginia.

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Oren Mangoubi is an assistant professor in Mathematical Sciences and Data Science. Previously he was a postdoctoral researcher in computer science at École Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland. He was a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics and statistics at the University of Ottawa, where he taught a course in statistics and probability for engineers. He has been published in top computer science venues, including “NeurIPS” and “FOCS,” as well as in mathematics venues, such as “Annals of Applied Probability.” He completed his undergraduate work in mathematics and electrical engineering at Yale and received his PhD in applied mathematics from MIT.

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Kathryn M. Moncrief is the new Paris Fletcher Distinguished Professor of Humanities and head of the Department of Humanities and Arts. She was professor and chair of the English Department at Washington College, in Maryland, where she taught courses in Shakespeare, Milton, and early modern literature and culture. She has published 13 articles, and four books, including “Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Early Modern Drama,” “Performing Maternity in Early Modern England,” and “Competitive Figure Skating for Girls.” She received a PhD in English from the University of Iowa and a master’s in English, and a master's in Theatre Arts and Dance from the University of Nebraska. She is a certified yoga instructor, and recently acted in the George Bernard Shaw plays “Major Barbara” and “Rapture, Blister, Burn.”

 

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Patricia Musacchio is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Before coming to WPI, she was conducting postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied at the intersection of chemical biology and organic chemistry. During her PhD work, she developed a visible light-mediated, user-friendly cross-electrophile coupling for organic chemists that has been implemented at Merck & Co., Genentech, Bristol-Meyers-Squibb Co., Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and Bayer AG. She received her master’s and her PhD in chemistry from Princeton University. She received the American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship and the Bristol-Meyers Squibb Graduate Fellowship. She has been published in the journals “Science,” “Journal of the American Chemical Society,” and “Nature Reviews Chemistry.”

Inna Nechipurenko is an assistant professor in the Department of Biology and Biotechnology. Before joining WPI, she was a postdoctoral associate in the biology department at Brandeis University. She received her PhD in neuroscience at Case Western Reserve University, and her BS in biology and business administration from Pennsylvania’s Bloomsburg University. She has been published in the peer-reviewed scientific journals “eLife,” the “Journal of Cell Biology,” and “Developmental Cell.”

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Xavier Ramos Olivé is a postdoctoral scholar in mathematics. He comes to WPI with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, a bachelor’s in physics from the University of Barcelona, and a PhD in mathematics from the University of California, Riverside. He has been published in the “Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society” and has taught courses ranging from calculus for life sciences to differential geometry and discrete mathematics.

 

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Sundari Ramabhotla is an assistant teaching professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. She comes to WPI from New York’s Vaughn College of Aeronautics & Technology, where she was an assistant professor in the department of engineering and technology. Previously, she was an assistant graduate advisor and instructor at the National Wind Institute at Texas Tech University. She has been published in 13 journals, including “International Journal of Research and Engineering” and “Journal of Energy and Power Engineering.” She received the Life Member award from the Society of Women Engineers. She earned her PhD in electrical engineering at Texas Tech.

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Daniel Reichman is an assistant professor of computer science. He was most recently a postdoctoral scholar in the computer science department at Princeton University. Prior to that, he was a postdoctoral scholar in electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, and a postdoctoral scholar in computer science at Cornell University. He has been published in journals, such as "Random structures and algorithms," “Annals of Applied Probability,” and "Transactions of Information theory." He earned his PhD in computer science at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science.

James Ryan is an associate teaching professor in the Foisie Business School. Prior to joining WPI, he was an associate professor of information systems at Auburn University at Montgomery, Ala., and was an associate professor and a tenured assistant professor at Troy University. For the past 22 years, Ryan has run his own business, J. Ryan Consulting, which is focused on information technology applications and telecommunications. He has written three textbook chapters and has been published eight times in peer-reviewed journals. He received his master’s and PhD in management information systems from Auburn University.

William C. Sanguinet is a senior instructor and lecturer in mathematics. He has a long history with WPI, where he received bachelor’s degrees in mathematical sciences and physics in 2010, his master’s in applied mathematics in 2012, and his PhD in mathematical sciences in 2015. He has been published in four journals, including the “International Journal of Solids and Structures.” He began working at WPI in 2018 as an adjunct professor, teaching calculus. At the same time, he was an adjunct professor at Clark University and Wentworth Institute of Technology.

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Robert Sarnie is a professor of practice in financial sciences in the Foisie Business School. With 31 years in IT and business leadership, he comes to WPI from Fidelity Investments, where he worked for 23 years, first as a senior business analyst and then as a vice president for the last 13 years. While at Fidelity, he worked in IT strategy, accounting/finance systems, and in human resources. He also was a systems programmer analyst at Ionics, Inc., a leading water purification company active throughout the world. He earned his master’s in business administration from Suffolk University. He is a basketball referee and a devoted Boston sports fan and has attended a Red Sox World Series, a Celtics Championship, and six Patriots Super Bowls.

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Herman Servatius is a senior instructor and lecturer in the Department of Mathematical Sciences. He has been an affiliate professor at WPI since 2012 and has been on the faculty of several institutions, including Syracuse University, Cornell, Tufts, and MIT. He has published many articles, and is a co-author of the classic text “Combinatorial Rigidity.” He has contributed chapters to several other texts, and he has two new books in the works. In addition to his PhD in mathematics from Syracuse University, he holds degrees in physics and computer science.

Hridaya Shah is an assistant teaching professor in the Department of Physics. He comes to WPI from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, where he was a research associate in the physics department and an adjunct faculty, teaching calculus-based courses on Newtonian mechanics, as well as electricity and magnetism to engineering majors. While working on his graduate degrees, he was a teaching assistant and tutor at UMass Lowell, where he received his master’s and PhD in physics. Shah has published in the peer-reviewed “The Astrophysical Journal.”

Omid Shahvari is a visiting assistant professor in the Foisie Business School. He comes to WPI from Mississippi State University where he was a postdoctoral associate and then a visiting assistant professor in the industrial and systems engineering department. He also was a graduate teaching and research assistant at Oregon State University and has extensive industry experience, working as an operations research scientist and production planning and control manager. He has been published in 10 academic journals, including “Applied Energy” and the “International Journal of Production Economics.” Shahvari received his master’s in industrial engineering from Mazandaran University of Science & Technology in Iran, and his PhD in industrial and manufacturing engineering from Oregon State. One of his papers, published in “IISE Transactions,” has been featured in the Research section of the June 2019 issue of the IISE’s Industrial and Systems Engineer magazine.

Patrick Robert Schaumont is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He came to WPI from Virginia Tech, where he was a professor in computer engineering, and named Dean’s Faculty Fellow. He has received grants from the NSF, NIST, and SRC, including an NSF CAREER Award, and has writtena computer engineering textbook on hardware and software codesign. In 2014, he was a visiting researcher at the National Institute of Information and Telecommunications Technology in Japan, and in 2018 he was a visiting researcher at Laboratoire d’Informatique de Paris. Schaumont received his PhD in electrical engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles, and his master’s in computer science at Ghent University in Belgium.

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Sarah Stanlick is an assistant professor in the Interdisciplinary and Global Studies Division. She comes to WPI after four years at Lehigh University, where she was the founding director of its Center for Community Engagement, and professor of sociology and anthropology. She has written four book chapters and published 10 articles in peer-reviewed journals, including the “Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning” and the “International Journal of Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement.” Stanlick was a teaching assistant at the Harvard University Extension School and a researcher at Harvard’s Kennedy School, assisting Samantha Power, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. She earned her master's degree from Brandeis University, and her PhD in learning sciences and technology from Lehigh.

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Sarah Strauss is a new professor in the Interdisciplinary and Global Studies Division. Prior to coming to WPI, she was professor of anthropology at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, where she taught for the past 14 years. She has worked as a visiting professor in the department of geosciences at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, and was a visiting scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. She has held two Fulbright awards for study in India, and she was a Rachel Carson Fellow for interdisciplinary study of environment and society. She did NSF-funded field research on water and climate change and USDA-funded research on beetle kill and biomass products. She earned her master’s in community health from San José State University in California, and her PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania.

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Zachary Taillefer is an assistant teaching professor in the aerospace engineering program. Before coming to WPI, he was a senior scientist at Busek Co., a Natick company focused on advanced propulsion thrusters for military, government, and commercial satellites. He was a teaching assistant and research assistant while at WPI and was a fellow at the Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium. A WPI alum, he received his bachelors in aerospace engineering, his master’s in mechanical engineering and his PhD in aerospace engineering. He played club ice hockey at WPI and is a volunteer with West Side Helping Hands, an academic and recreation youth center in West Springfield.

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Yunus Doğan Telliel is an assistant professor of anthropology and rhetoric. He came to WPI in 2018 as an assistant teaching professor and has taught courses on ethics, the social study of science, religion, and culture, and questions surrounding belonging and inclusion in the U.S. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his PhD in anthropology from the City University of New York. His research has been supported by the NSF and the Wenner-Gren Foundation.

 

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Seth Tuler is an associate professor in the Interdisciplinary and Global Studies Division, where he has been a teaching professor since 2002, preparing students for their IQPs and advising more than 80 projects in Worcester and Boston, and as far afield as Thailand, Australia, and India. He also has taught courses as part of WPI’s environmental studies major and has been awarded more than $2.7 million in grants. He has consulted for President Barack Obama’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, with a focus on social factors in nuclear waste management, and provided technical assistance on community health risks from nuclear weapons facilities. He has served on multiple committees of the National Academies of Sciences, including on chemical weapons dismantlement.

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James L. Urban is an assistant professor in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering. Before coming to WPI, he was a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in the department of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He also worked as a freelance engineering consultant, investigating causes of fires and evaluating fire hazards and fire safety equipment. He has been published in the peer-reviewed journals “Fire Technology,” “Fire Safety Journal,” and “Proceedings of the Combustion Institute.” He received his BS at Case Western Reserve University and his master’s and PhD in mechanical engineering from Berkeley.

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Sam Walcott is an associate professor and Sinclair Professor of Mathematical Sciences. Before joining WPI, he was an associate professor at the University of California, Davis for the last eight years. With a background in biology, mechanics and applied mathematics, he completed his postdoctoral fellowships at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Vermont. Walcott’s papers have been published in peer-reviewed journals, such as “Nature Communications” and the “American Journal of Physiology.” He received his PhD in theoretical and applied mechanics from Cornell University.

Fangfang Wang is an associate professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences. Before joining WPI, she was a visiting assistant professor in the department of statistics at the University of Wisconsin. She also has been a visiting assistant professor at the University of Connecticut, and an assistant professor in the Liautaud Graduate School of Business at the University of Illinois. Wang has been published in 13 journals, including the “Journal of the Royal Statistical Society.” She received her PhD in statistics at the University of North Carolina.

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Chaozhen Wei is a postdoctoral scholar in mathematics. He comes to WPI from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, where he was a postdoctoral fellow in the mathematics department and the Institute of Advanced Study. He also was a teaching assistant and instructor at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has been published in five journals, including “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” and “Proceedings of the Royal Society.” He received his PhD in applied mathematics in 2017 from SUNY Buffalo.

 

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Jonathan Weinstock is an assistant teaching professor in computer science. He joined WPI in 2018 as an adjunct instructor and lecturer in computer science, teaching the social implications of information technology. Before that, he was an adjunct assistant professor in computer science at Bentley University, an assistant professor at Bridgewater State, and an adjunct professor at Temple University. He spent the last 32 years in corporate R&D, working for industry giants Bell Labs, Ericsson, Motorola, and Cisco, and hold six patents. He received his master’s and PhD in computer and information science from Temple University.

Duncan Wright is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Mathematical Sciences. He comes to WPI from the University of South Carolina, where he was an instructor of record, graduate teaching assistant and a graduate student teaching mentor. He received his master’s in mathematics from the University of Northern Iowa and his PhD in mathematics from the University of South Carolina. While math is one of Wright’s hobbies as well as his profession, he loves watching and playing soccer, and is the captain of a mathematics intramural soccer team. He also is into games and was a co-organizer of a scavenger hunt while at USC.

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Ali Yousefi is an assistant professor in computer science. Prior to joining WPI, he was a research scientist at Boston University in the department of mathematics and statistics, as well as an instructor with Harvard Medical School in the department of psychiatry. He earned his PhD with a major in electrical engineering and a minor in biomedical engineering from the University of Southern California, and his master’s in electrical engineering from Iran’s Sharif University of Technology. He has completed postdoctoral training at both Harvard Medical School and the Mayo Clinic.

 

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Seyed (Reza) A. Zekavat is a professor in the Department of Physics. He first came to WPI in 2018 as a visiting professor. Before his new appointment, he spent 17 years at Michigan Tech University, where his last position was as professor. He also was the director of the university’s Wireless Positioning Lab. During his career, he has been a visiting professor at Boston University, Harvard University, the University of New South Wales in Australia, and Malaysia Technological University. He has received grants from Ford Motor Co., NASA, the Army Research Lab, and five from the NSF. He has authored or co-authored three books, and has received a U.S. patent for a wireless local positioning system. He received his master’s in electrical engineering from Sharif University of Technology in Iran and his PhD in electrical engineering from Colorado State University.

Xiangrui Zeng is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He comes to WPI from Ford Motor Company, where he was a research data scientist in the company’s Smart Mobility Analytics department for the past three years. He worked on optimizing powertrain control strategies, using personal driving and geospatial data, and considering human behaviors and the transportation environment in the automotive system control design for better energy efficiency. He has published seven papers in top-tier journals on topics ranging from automotive control to human-machine systems, transportation and energy. He received his PhD in mechanical engineering from The Ohio State University.

Ziming Zhang is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Before joining WPI, he had been a research scientist at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories since 2016. Prior to that, he was a research assistant professor in machine learning and computer vision at Boston University. He has been published in the peer-reviewed journals “IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence” and “Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.” Zhang received his PhD in computer science from Oxford Brookes University and his master’s in computer science from Simon Fraser University. He won the R&D100 Award in 2018.

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Yihao Zheng is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He most recently worked as a research investigator and an adjunct lecturer, in the department of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan. At the same time he was a research assistant with the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System. He was co-investigator on a VA Merit Review Award of more than $1 million to investigate vascular elasticity and 3D structure by ultrasound in dialysis patients. He holds four patents on medical devices and has published 18 research articles. He received his master’s and his PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan.

Keith Zizza is an instructor in the Interactive Media and Game Design program. He has been at WPI since 2011 as a professor of practice in game audio, designing the game audio curriculum and teaching students about interactive audio production in new media. He also has helped create industry partnerships and internship programs. With more than 20 years of experience in the video game industry, he has been involved with launching more than 50 commercially released products, including the classic, award-winning City Building Series of games from Sierra On-Line, The Oregon Trail, and Sim City Societies.

About Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Worcester Polytechnic Institute, a purpose-driven community of educators and researchers, has been the global leader in project-based learning for 50 years. An impact maker for higher education and the world, WPI prepares confident, competent problem solvers with a project-based curriculum that immerses students in authentic, real-world experiences.