New Faculty — Year 2018-19

Ashley Beck
Assistant Professor
Ph.D. (2018), Montana State University

Research Interests: Stoichiometric metabolic network modeling, elementary flux mode analysis, flux balance analysis, microbial community interactions, phototroph-heterotroph interactions, community ecology theory.

Beck earned her B.A. in biology and mathematics from Central College in Pella, Iowa. She earned her Ph.D. in microbiology, as well as a certificate in college teaching, at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana, before joining the NC State faculty.

Presently, she studies metabolic pathways and microbial response to environmental stress in a variety of systems, with particular interest in community interaction dynamics. Both modeling techniques and experimental approaches are used to understand the systems.

• Beck, A. E., Hunt, K. A., & Carlson, R. P. Measuring cellular biomass composition for computational biology applications. Processes, 6(5), 38.
• Carlson, R. P., Beck, A. E., Phalak, P., Fields, M. W., Gedeon, T., Hanley, L., Harcombe, W. R., Henson, M. A., & Heys, J. J. (2018). Competitive resource allocation to metabolic pathways contributes to overflow metabolisms and emergent properties in cross-feeding microbial consortia. Biochemical Society Transactions, 46(2), 269-284.
• Schmitt-Wilson, S., Downey, J., & Beck, A. E. (2018). Rural educational attainment: The importance of context. Journal of Research in Rural Education, 33(1), 1-14.
• Beck, A. E., Bernstein, H. C., & Carlson, R. P. (2017). Stoichiometric network analysis of cyanobacterial acclimation to photosynthesis-associated stresses identifies heterotrophic niches. Processes, 5(2), 32.
• Beck, A. E., Hunt, K. A., Bernstein, H. C., & Carlson, R. P. (2016). Interpreting and designing microbial communities for bioprocess applications, from components to interactions to emergent properties. In C. E. Eckert & C. T. Trinh (Eds.), Biotechnology for biofuel production and optimization (pp. 407-432). Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Laura Merriman
Assistant Professor
Ph.D. (2018), North Carolina State University

Research Interests: Scholarly inquiry into student learning via pedagogical studies, curriculum assessments, implementation of more modern teaching methods, and other pillars of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning movement.

Merriman received her Ph.D. and M.BAE in biological and agricultural engineering from NC State University with the support of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. She completed her undergraduate studies in biosystems and agricultural engineering at Oklahoma State University.

Before joining the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering in August 2018, Merriman spent 2.5 years playing in the rain as a water resources engineer with a consulting firm in San Diego, California. During this time, she was involved with a variety of projects, such as investigating pollutant sources and pathways in watersheds, identifying data gaps, and recommending monitoring and engineering desktop analyses needed to perform modeling tasks; implementing low impact development and green infrastructure strategies; designing retrofits for existing stormwater drainage systems; and providing maintenance and/or rehabilitation recommendations to clients.

• Merriman, L.S., Hathaway, J.M., Burchell, M.R., and Hunt, W.F. 2017. Adapting the Relaxed Tanks-in-Series Model for Stormwater Wetland Water Quality Performance. Water, 9(9): 691.
• Merriman, L.S., Moore, T.L.C., Wang, J.W., Osmond, D.L., Al-Rubaei, A.M., Smolek, A.P., Blecken, G.T., Viklander, M., and Hunt, W.F. 2017. Evaluation of factors affecting soil carbon sequestration services of stormwater wet retention ponds in varying climate zones. Science of the Total Environment, 583: 133-141.
• Al-Rubaei, A.M., Merriman, L.S., Hunt, W.F., Viklander, M., Marsalek, J., and Blecken, G.T. 2017. Survey of the Operational Status of 25 Swedish Municipal Stormwater Management Ponds. Journal of Environmental Engineering, 143(6): 05017001.
• Merriman, L.S., Hunt, W.F., and Bass. K.L. 2016. Development/ripening of ecosystems services in the first two growing seasons of a regional-scale constructed stormwater wetland on the coast of North Carolina. Ecological Engineering, 94: 393-405.
• Merriman, L.S., and Hunt, W.F. 2014. Maintenance versus Maturation: Constructed storm-water wetland’s fifth-year water quality and hydrologic assessment. Journal of Environmental Engineering, 140(10): 05014003.

Mahmoud Sharara
Assistant Professor
Ph.D. (2015), University of Arkansas

Research Interests: Bio-waste stabilization and conversion processes, value-added products from agricultural waste, centralized waste management systems in agricultural contexts, and multi-objective optimization of agricultural systems to achieve environmental, economic and social sustainability goals.

Sharara received his B.S. in agricultural engineering from Alexandria University in Egypt. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in agricultural and biological engineering from the University of Arkansas. He was a postdoctoral researcher, then an assistant scientist in the Biosystems Engineering Department and the Wisconsin Energy Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Presently, he studies agricultural waste management using separation, processing and conversion technologies to achieve economic, environmental and social sustainability goals. Sharara studies thermochemical, biological and mechanical processes and technologies to produce fuel, fertilizer and value-added products from livestock manure and crop residue. He studies the use of life cycle assessment and techno-economic assessment methodologies to benchmark existing waste management practices, identify hot-spots, and guide the development and adoption of improved management practices. Furthermore, his research studies the use of single- and multi-objective optimization techniques coupled with spatial analysis to develop farm-, watershed-, and region-level strategies to increase adoption of sustainable waste management practices.

• Mahmoud A. Sharara, and Sammy S. Sadaka. “Opportunities and Barriers to Bioenergy Conversion Techniques and Their Potential Implementation on Swine Manure.” Energies. 2018. 11(4) (2018), 957.
• Mahmoud A. Sharara, Troy Runge, Rebecca Larson & John G. Primm. Techno-economic optimization of community-based manure processing. Agricultural Systems. 2018. 161, 117-123.
• Mahmoud A. Sharara, Apoorva Sampat, Laura W. Good, Amanda S. Smith, Pamela Porter, Victor M. Zavala, Rebecca Larson and Troy Runge. Spatially explicit methodology for manure management at the watershed level. Journal of Environmental Management. 2017. 192: 48-56.
• Kim, Seungdo, Xuesong Zhang, Bruce Dale, Ashwan Daram Reddy, Curtis Dinneen Jones, Keith Cronin, Roberto Cesar Izaurralde, Troy Runge, and Mahmoud A. Sharara. “Corn stover cannot simultaneously meet both the volume and GHG reduction requirements of the renewable fuel standard.” Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining (2017).

George Ligler
Dean’s Eminent Professor of the Practice in Biomedical Engineering
D. Phil. (1975), University of Oxford

Research Interests: The continued expansion of embedded microprocessor-based systems and products into a wide variety of applications, particularly in biomedical engineering; the multi-disciplinary design, implementation, and integration of major, distributed computer and telecommunications systems; business process reengineering driving the development of information technology systems; and manned and unmanned aircraft communications, navigation and surveillance systems for the U.S. National Airspace System and worldwide aviation.

Ligler holds a B.S. degree in mathematics from Furman University and M.Sc. and D.Phil. degrees in computation from the University of Oxford. His studies at Oxford were supported by a Rhodes Scholarship. Ligler joins the UNC/NC State Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) after 29 years as proprietor of his computer systems engineering consulting firm GTL Associates, his engineering contributions at which resulted in him receiving a number of national awards including election in 2017 as a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Prior to forming GTL Associates, he was a project/research manager at Texas Instruments, director of engineering at the Burroughs Special Systems Division, president of Aydin Controls Division (computer graphics), and a division and group vice president at Computer Sciences Corporation. Additionally, he has served on BME’s Industrial Advisory Board since 2015.

• National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2018) Assessing the risks of integrating Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into the national airspace system. The National Academies Press, Washington D.C., 76 pp. https://doi.org/10.17226/25143. (Chair of Committee and co-author of report).
• Hegarty, C.J., G.T. Ligler, K. Alexander, L. Chesto, H. Moses, J.M.Wichgers, P.Enge, R. Erlandson, A.J. Van Dierendonck, L. Azoulai, S. Kalyanaraman, S. Heppe, Y.C. Lee, K. Wesson, and J. Studenny (2015) RTCA SC-159: 30 years of aviation GPS standards. Proceedings of the 28th International Technical Meeting of The Satellite Division of the Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2015), September 14-18, 2015, Tampa, Florida, 877-896.

William Polacheck
Assistant Professor
Ph.D. (2013), Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Research Interests: Fluid mechanics and mass transport in biological tissues and cells, microfluidics, tissue engineering, gene editing, synthetic biology, and regenerative medicine.

Polacheck received his B.S. in biological and environmental engineering from Cornell University and continued on to receive his M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from M.I.T. He then crossed the Charles River to join the Wyss Institute for Bioinspired Engineering at Harvard University and the Biodesign Center at Boston University as an NIH NHLBI Postdoctoral Fellow. He is now an assistant professor at the UNC/NC State Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering.

His research interests lie broadly at the intersection of fluid and porous media mechanics, mechanobiology, and organs-on-chips. His group leverages microfabrication and microfluidic technology to develop micro-physiological systems, with the goal of recapitulating organ-level function ex-vivo. He is also interested in defining and understanding the molecular basis for mechanotransduction, the process by which cells convert mechanical signals into biological responses. Integrating the engineering and basic science objectives of the lab, his group seeks to identify the molecular mechanisms of diseases in which cell and tissue mechanics contributes to pathogenesis and to develop interventional strategies to treat these diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and fibrosis.

• Polacheck, W.J., Kutys, M.L., Yang, J., Eyckmans, J.E., Wu, Y., Vasavada, H., Hirschi, K.K., Chen, C.S. (2017) “A non-canonical Notch signaling complex regulates adherens junctions and endothelial barrier function.” Nature. 552(7684):258-262.
• Polacheck, W.J., Charest, J.L., and Kamm, R.D. (2011) “Interstitial flow influences tumor cell migration through competing mechanisms.” Proc. Nat. Acad. Sciences. USA. 108(27): 11115-11120.
• Polacheck, W.J., German, A.E., Mammoto, A., Ingber, D.E., and Kamm, R.D. (2014) “Mechanotransduction of fluid stresses governs 3D cell migration.” Proc. Nat. Acad. Sciences. USA. 111(7): 2447-2452.
• Scarcelli, G., Polacheck, W.J., Nia, H.T., Grodzinsky, A.J., Kamm, R.D., Yun, S.H. (2015) “Noncontact three-dimensional mapping of intracellular hydro-mechanical properties by Brillouin microscopy.” Nature Methods 12(12): 1132-1134.
• Hinson, J.T., Chopra, A.C., Nafissi, N., Polacheck, W.J., Benson, C.C., Swist, S., Gorham, J., Yang, L., Schafer, S., Hubner, N., Church, G., Cook, S.A., Linke, W.A., Chen, C.S., Seidman, J.G., Seidman, C.E. (2015) “Sarcomere insufficiency in an iPS model of dilated cardiomyopathy from titin mutations.” Science 349 (6251): 982-986.

Imran Rizvi
Assistant Professor
Ph.D. (2010), Dartmouth College

Research Interests: Photodynamic therapy, molecular targeting in cancer, combination therapies, therapeutic and diagnostic applications of light, bioengineered cancer models, fluidic stress and resistance mechanisms in tumors.

Rizvi holds a Ph.D. in engineering sciences from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College, an M.S. in tumor biology from the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University, and a B.A. from Johns Hopkins University. He moved to Chapel Hill from Boston where he was an assistant professor of dermatology, tenure-track, at Harvard Medical School (HMS), and an assistant biomedical engineer at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine (WCP), Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). He was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Tayyaba Hasan in the Department of Dermatology at the WCP, MGH, HMS. He moved as an Instructor in Medicine (HMS) to the laboratory of Dr. Utkan Demirci in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, HMS.

His expertise is in imaging and therapeutic applications of light, bioengineered 3D models and animal models for cancer, and targeted drug delivery for inhibition of molecular survival pathways in tumors. His K99/R00 (NCI) develops photodynamic therapy (PDT)-based combinations against molecular pathways that are altered by fluidic stress in ovarian cancer. He is also co-PI on an Innovation Award with Bristol-Myers Squibb to develop optical techniques in immuno-oncology for light-based modulation of immune response. He has co-authored 39 peer-reviewed publications and five book chapters with a focus on PDT, biomedical optics, and molecular targeting in cancer.

• Rizvi, I et al. 2013, “Flow induces epithelial-mesenchymal transition, cellular heterogeneity and biomarker modulation in 3D ovarian cancer nodules.” PNAS 110(22), E1974-83.
• Rizvi, I et al. 2010, “Synergistic enhancement of carboplatin efficacy with photodynamic therapy in a three-dimensional model for micrometastatic ovarian cancer.” Can. Res. 70(22), 9319-28.
• Rizvi, I and Obaid, G et al. 2018, “Photodynamic therapy: Promoting in vitro efficacy of photodynamic therapy by liposomal formulations of a photosensitizing agent.” Lasers in Surgery and Medicine 50(5), 499-505.
• Rizvi, I et al. 2013, “Impact of treatment response metrics on photodynamic therapy planning and outcomes in a three-dimensional model of ovarian cancer.” Photochemistry and Photobiology 89(4), 942-52.
• Huang HC, Rizvi I, and Liu J et al. 2018, “Photodynamic Priming Mitigates Chemotherapeutic Selection Pressures and Improves Drug Delivery.” Can. Res. 78(2), 558-571.

Assistant Professor
Ph.D. (2014), University of Texas at Austin

Research Interests: Enhancing and deciphering the mechanisms of colonization in probiotic microorganisms. Improving control and elucidating the rules governing probiotic gene expression in situ; probing interactions among the members of the human microbiota. Bioprospecting novel gene functions.

Crook received his B.S. in chemical engineering from the California Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in the laboratory of Dr. Hal Alper. Prior to joining the NC State faculty, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Center for Genome Sciences at the Washington University in Saint Louis School of Medicine in the laboratory of Gautam Dantas.

The Crook Lab is broadly interested in engineering microbial communities, whether they are located in an industrial, agricultural, or medical setting. The lab develops and applies novel high-throughput forward engineering and genomic analysis methods. They’re currently studying colonization and gene expression in probiotic organisms, and apply this knowledge toward delivery of additional gene functions to the human body. The lab’s interests include engineering both commensal fungi (the “mycobiome”) as well as bacteria. Additionally, they investigate the evolutionary forces that shape genomes within microbial communities. The Crook Lab blends experimentation, theoretical modeling, and computational analysis to build, predict, and interpret novel microbial community architectures.

• Nathan Crook*, Jie Sun*, Joe Abatemarco*, James Wagner, Alexander Schmitz, and Hal Alper, 2016. in vivo continuous evolution of genes and pathways in yeast. Nature Communications, 7:13051.
• Nathan Crook, Jie Sun, Nicholas Morse, Alexander Schmitz, and Hal Alper, 2016. Identification of gene knockdown targets conferring enhanced isobutanol and 1-butanol tolerance to Saccharomyces cerevisiae using a tunable RNAi screening approach. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, 100(23), 10005-10018.
• Kate Curran*, Nathan Crook*, Ashty Karim, Akash Gupta, and Hal Alper, 2014. Model-based design of synthetic yeast promoters via tuning of nucleosome architecture. Nature Communications, 5:4002.
• Nathan Crook, Alexander Schmitz, and Hal Alper, 2014. Optimization of a yeast RNA interference system for controlling gene expression and enabling rapid metabolic engineering. ACS Synthetic Biology 3(5), 307–313.
• Nathan Crook, Elizabeth Freeman, and Hal Alper, 2011. Re-Engineering Multicloning Sites for Function and Convenience. Nucleic Acids Research 39(14), e92.

* Equal contribution

Assistant Professor
Ph.D. (2015), Stanford University

Research Interests: Human exposure pathways to fecal contamination in developing countries and development of improved interventions to interrupt disease transmission pathways to protect human health.

Harris earned her Ph.D. and M.S. in environmental engineering from Stanford University. She also received her B.S. in chemical and biomolecular engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Harris was most recently a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University, where she taught undergraduate students in addition to continuing her research endeavors in the civil and environmental engineering department.

Her research seeks to better characterize human exposure pathways of fecal contamination and develop methods to interrupt pathogen transmission to protect human health. Additionally, Harris seeks to improve data collection and analysis methods related to environmental health. She has worked on international research projects in Tanzania, Kenya, and Bangladesh.

• Harris, A. R., Amin, M., Unicomb, L., Davis, J., Boehm, A., Luby, S., Pickering, A. J. (2018) Fecal contamination on produce from wholesale and retail food markets in Dhaka, Bangladesh. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 98(1).
• Boehm, A. B., Wang, D., Ercumen, A., Shea, M., Harris, A. R., Shanks, O. C., Kelty, C., Ahmed, A., Mahmud, Z. H., Arnold, B. F., Chase, C., Kullmann, C., Ahmed, R., Colford Jr., J. M., Luby, S. P., Pickering, A. J. (2016) Occurrence of host-associated fecal markers on child hands, household soil, and drinking water in rural Bangladeshi households. Environmental Science and Technology Letters, 3(11).
• Harris, A. R., Pickering, A. J., Harris, M. R., Doza, S., Islam, S., Unicomb, L., Luby, S., Davis, J., Boehm, A. (2016) Ruminants contribute fecal contamination to the household environment in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Environmental Science and Technology, 50(9).
• Mattioli, M. C., Boehm, A.B., Davis, J., Harris, A. R., Mrisho, M., Pickering, A. J. (2014) Enteric pathogens in stored drinking water and on caregiver’s hands in Tanzanian household with and without reported cases of child diarrhea. PLoS ONE, 9(1).
• Harris, A. R., Davis, J., Boehm, A. (2013) Mechanisms of post-supply contamination of drinking water in Bagamoyo, Tazania. Journal of Water and Health, 11(3).

Associate Professor
Ph.D. (2004), University of Pittsburgh

Research Interests: To advance a transformative theory of effective learning technology and its applications in order to advance a cognitive theory of learning and teaching; innovating an artificial-intelligence technology for education that helps students learn, teachers teach and researchers understand how people learn and fail to learn.

Matsuda received his B.A. and M.S. in mathematics education from Tokyo Gakugei University in Tokyo, Japan. He received a Ph.D. in intelligent systems from the University of Pittsburgh. He received postdoctoral research training in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to joining NC State, Matsuda was an associate professor of Cyber STEM Education and the director of the Innovative Educational Computing Laboratory at Texas A&M University.

He has been leading an NSF and IES (Institute of Education Studies, US Department of Education) funded SimStudent project where he develops a computational model of learning and studies its application. Using SimStudent as a synthetic tutee for students to learn by teaching is one of the most funded and well-studied applications of SimStudent. He has also been a leading researcher on an NSF funded PASTEL project where he develops scalable and transformative learning-engineering methods to build adaptive online courseware efficiently. The PASTEL methods provide courseware developers with tools for evidence-based iterative courseware design and development.

• Matsuda, N. (2018). The State-of-the-Art Pedagogical Agent Technology in the Field of Learning Science. Journal of Japan Society for Information and Systems in Education, 35(1), 13-20.
• Matsuda, N., Cohen, W. W., & Koedinger, K. R. (2015). Teaching the Teacher: Tutoring SimStudent leads to more Effective Cognitive Tutor Authoring. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 25, 1-34.
• Li, N., Matsuda, N., Cohen, W. W., & Koedinger, K. R. (2015). Integrating representation learning and skill learning in a human-like intelligent agent. Artificial Intelligence, 219, 67-91.
• Matsuda, N., Yarzebinski, E., Keiser, V., Raizada, R., Stylianides, G. J., & Koedinger, K. R. (2013). Studying the Effect of a Competitive Game Show in a Learning by Teaching Environment. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 23(1-4), 1-21.
• Matsuda, N., Yarzebinski, E., Keiser, V., Raizada, R., William, W. C., Stylianides, G. J., & Koedinge, K. R. (2013). Cognitive anatomy of tutor learning: Lessons learned with SimStudent. Journal of Educational Psychology, 105(4), 1152-1163.

Assistant Professor
Ph.D. (2018), North Carolina State University

Research Interests: Computing education; intelligent tutoring systems, educational data mining, artificial intelligence in education, data-driven hint generation; block-based and novice programming environments; intelligent support in learning environments; student help-seeking behavior.

Price received his B.S. in computer science from Elon University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science from North Carolina State University. His research focuses on building technology that adaptively supports students as they learn to program. He has developed techniques for automatically generating hints and feedback for students in real-time by leveraging data collected from other students.

His current projects include exploring new, data-driven methods for supporting students, evaluating these systems in classroom and online learning settings, and investigating how students seek and use help when learning. Through his research and outreach, he works to make computing education accessible to a larger and more diverse population of students.

• Price, T. W., R. Zhi, Y. Dong, N. Lytle and T. Barnes. “The Impact of Data Quantity and Source on the Quality of Data-driven Hints for Programming.” International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education. 2018.
• Price, T. W., Z. Liu, V. Cateté and T. Barnes. “Factors Influencing Students’ Help-Seeking Behavior while Programming with Human and Computer Tutors.” International Computing Education Research (ICER) Conference. 2017.
• Price, T. W., R. Zhi and T. Barnes. “Evaluation of a Data-driven Feedback Algorithm for Open-ended Programming.” International Conference on Educational Data Mining. 2017.
• Price, T. W., Y. Dong and D. Lipovac. “iSnap: Towards Intelligent Tutoring in Novice Programming Environments.” ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE). 2017.
• Price, T. W. and T. Barnes. “Comparing Textual and Block Interfaces in a Novice Programming Environment.” International Computing Education Research Conference (ICER). 2015.

Head and Professor
Ph.D. (1996), Clemson University

Research Interests: Software engineering and program analysis, with emphases on the application of program analysis techniques to problems in software testing and maintenance, end-user software engineering, and empirical studies.

Rothermel earned a B.A. in philosophy from Reed College in 1983, an M.S. in computer science from State University of New York at Albany in 1986 and a Ph.D. in computer science from Clemson University in 1996. Prior to joining the NC State faculty, Rothermel was professor and Jensen Chair of Software Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

He is an IEEE Fellow and an ACM Distinguished Scientist. He currently serves as an at-large member for ACM SIGSOFT, as general co-chair for the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering, and as an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology.

Rothermel co-founded the ESQuaReD (Empirically-Based Software Quality Research and Development) Laboratory at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He also co-founded the EUSES (End-Users Shaping Effective Software) Consortium, a group of researchers who, with National Science Foundation support, have led end-user software engineering research. He founded and leads the development of the Software-Artifact Infrastructure Repository (SIR), a repository of software-related artifacts that support rigorous controlled experiments with program analysis and software testing techniques. He has published more than 140 journal articles and rigorously refereed conference papers. His research has been supported by NSF, DARPA, AFOSR, Boeing Commercial Airplane Group, Microsoft, and Lockheed Martin.

• G. Rothermel, R. Untch, C. Chu, and M. J. Harrold, Prioritizing test cases for regression testing, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, V. 27, No. 10, October 2001, pages 929-948.
• G. Rothermel and M. J. Harrold, A safe, efficient regression test selection technique, ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, V. 6, No. 2, April 1997, pages 173-210.
• H. Do, S. Elbaum, and G. Rothermel, Supporting controlled experimentation with testing techniques: An infrastructure and its potential impact, Empirical Software Engineering, An International Journal, V. 10, No. 4, October 2005, pages 405-435.
• S. Elbaum, G. Rothermel, J. Penix, Techniques for improving regression testing in continuous integration development environments, Proceedings of the ACM SIGOSOFT International Symposium on Foundations of Software Engineering, November 2014, pages 235-245.
• Ko, R. Abraham, L. Beckwith, M. Burnett, J. Lawrence, H. Lieberman, B. Myers, M. B. Rosson, G. Rothermel, C. Scaffidi, M. Shaw, S. Wiedenbeck, The state of the art in end-user software engineering, ACM Computing Surveys, V. 43, no. 3, April 2011, pages 21:1-21:44.

Assistant Professor
Ph.D. (2016), Virginia Tech

Research Interests: Post-quantum cryptosystems, lightweight encryption for Internet-of-Things, physical unclonable functions, secure computer architectures with side-channel defenses, and malware detection with machine learning.

Aysu received his B.S degree in microelectronics engineering with a mathematics minor and his M.S degree in electrical engineering from Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey. He received his Ph.D. degree in computer engineering from Virginia Tech. He was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin.

He conducts research on cybersecurity with an emphasis on hardware-based security. The focus of his research is the development of secure systems that prevent advanced cyberattacks targeting hardware vulnerabilities. To that end, his research interests cover applied cryptography, computer architecture, and digital hardware design. His most recent work showed the first successful attacks on post-quantum key-exchange protocols, which was selected as the best paper runner-up at the International Conference on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST’2018).

• Aysu, A., Tobah, Y., Tiwari, M., Gerstlauer, A., & Orshansky, M. (2018) Horizontal side-channel vulnerabilities of post-quantum key exchange protocols. In 2018 IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST)(pp. 81-88). IEEE.
• Aysu, A., & Schaumont, P. (2016). Precomputation methods for hash-based signatures on energy-harvesting platforms. IEEE Transactions on Computers, (9), 2925-2931.
• Aysu, A., Gulcan, E., Moriyama, D., Schaumont, P., & Yung, M. (2015). End-to-end design of a PUF-based privacy preserving authentication protocol. In International Workshop on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems (pp. 556-576). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
• Aysu, A., Gulcan, E., & Schaumont, P. (2014). SIMON Says, Break the Area Records for Symmetric Key Block Ciphers on FPGAs. IACR Cryptology ePrint Archive, 2014, 237.
• Aysu, A., Patterson, C., & Schaumont, P. (2013). Low-cost and area-efficient FPGA implementations of lattice-based cryptography. In Hardware-Oriented Security and Trust (HOST), 2013 IEEE International Symposium on (pp. 81-86). IEEE.

Assistant Professor
Ph.D. (2016), Georgia Institute of Technology

Research Interests: Semiconductor devices, electronic nanomaterials, power electronics, RF/mm-wave electronics, biosensors, flexible electronics, packaging, and high-frequency circuit design.

Pavlidis received his M.Eng in electrical and electronic engineering from Imperial College London, followed by his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He was a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech prior to joining the faculty at NC State.

He has established the NC State Laboratory for Electronics in Advanced Devices and Systems (NCSU LEADS) whose core goal is to push the performance limits of electronics using novel semiconductor materials. This includes the use of wide bandgap semiconductors for power conversion applications, which is supported by the PowerAmerica Manufacturing Institute. In addition, his lab is investigating the use of wide bandgap and 2D materials for high frequency components. He is also studying portable and flexible chemical sensors for health and environmental monitoring.

• S. Pavlidis, G. Alexopoulos, A. Ç. Ulusoy, M. K. Cho, and J. Papapolymerou, “Encapsulated Organic Package Technology for Wideband Integration of Heterogeneous MMICs,” IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 65, pp. 438-448, 2017.
• S. Pavlidis, B. Bayraktaroglu, K. Leedy, W. Henderson, E. Vogel, and O. Brand, “ALD TiOx as a top-gate dielectric and passivation layer for InGaZnO115 ISFETs,” Semiconductor Science and Technology, vol. 32, no. 11, p. 114004, 2017.
• G. Pavlidis, S. Pavlidis, E. R. Heller, E. A. Moore, R. Vetury, and S. Graham, “Characterization of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs Using Gate Resistance Thermometry,” IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, vol. 64, pp. 78-83, 2017.
• S. Pavlidis, A. C. Ulusoy, and J. Papapolymerou, “A 5.4W X-Band Gallium Nitride (GaN) Power Amplifier in an Encapsulated Organic Package,” in 2015 European Microwave Conference (EuMC), Paris, France, 2015, pp. 789-792.
• M.-Y. Tsai, N. Creedon, E. Brightbill, S. Pavlidis, B. Brown, D. W. Gray, N. Shields, R. Sayers, M. Mooney, A. O’Riordan, E.M. Vogel, “Direct Correlation between Potentiometric and Impedance Biosensing of Antibody-Antigen Interactions using an Integrated System,” Applied Physics Letters, vol. 111, no. 7, p. 073701, 2017.

Assistant Professor
Ph.D. (2017), University of Maryland, College Park

Research Interests: Semiconductor devices, electronic nanomaterials, power electronics, RF/mm-wave electronics, biosensors, flexible electronics, packaging, and high-frequency circuit design.

Wong received his B.Eng. degree with first class honors in 2008, and M.Phil. degree in 2010, both in electronic and information engineering from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and his Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2017. Prior to joining the NC State faculty, he worked as a data scientist at Origin Wireless, Inc.

His research focuses on extraction, process, analysis, and utilization of digital/digitized signals for forensic applications. His research exploits problems’ domain knowledge and synergistically applies theories in image processing/computer vision, applied statistics, machine learning, and optimization to build highly effective engineering systems.

• Adi Hajj-Ahmad, Chau-Wai Wong, Steven Gambino, Qiang Zhu, Miao Yu, and Min Wu, “Factors affecting ENF capture in audio,” IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (T-IFS), vol.14, no.2, pp.277–288, Feb. 2019.
• Chau-Wai Wong and Min Wu, “Counterfeit detection based on unclonable feature of paper using mobile camera,” IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (T-IFS), vol.12, no.8, pp.1885–1899, Aug. 2017.
• Chau-Wai Wong, Guan-Ming Su, and Min Wu, “Impact analysis of baseband quantizer on coding efficiency for HDR video,” IEEE Signal Processing Letters (SPL), vol.23, no.10, pp.1354–1358, Oct. 2016.
• Chau-Wai Wong and Wan-Chi Siu, “Analysis of dyadic approximation error for hybrid video codecs with integer transforms,” IEEE Transactions on Image Processing (T-IP), vol.20, no.10, pp.2780–2787, Oct. 2011.
• Xinyan Zhao, Mengqi Zhan, and Chau-Wai Wong, “Evolving publics, evolving messages: Analyzing publics’ information sharing network in a social-mediated crisis,” 67th Annual Conference of International Communication Association (ICA’17), San Diego, CA, 25–29 May 2017. [Top Student Paper Award (top 4 out of 149 accepted papers), Public Relations Division].

Assistant Professor
Ph.D. (2018), Georgia Institute of Technology

Research Interests: Theory Data analytics, machine learning; applications: system monitoring, diagnostics, and prognostics.

Fang received his B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Science and Technology Beijing, China. He received his M.S. in statistics and a Ph.D. in industrial engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

His research interests lie in the field of industrial predictive analytics for high-dimensional and big data applications in the energy, manufacturing, and service sectors. Specifically, he focuses on addressing analytical, computational, and scalability challenges associated with the development of statistical and optimization methodologies for analyzing massive amounts of complex data structures for real-time asset management and optimization.

• Fang X., Gebraeel N., and Paynabar K. (2017). Scalable Prognostic Models for Large-Scale Condition Monitoring Applications. IISE Transactions, 49(7), 698-710.
• Fang X., Paynabar K., and Gebraeel N. (2017). Multistream Sensor Fusion-Based Prognostics Model for Systems with Single Failure Modes. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 159, 322-331.
• Xia T., Xi L., Pan E., Fang X., Gebraeel N. (2017). Lease-Oriented Opportunistic Maintenance for Multi-Unit Leased Systems under Product-Service Paradigm. ASME Transactions, Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, 139(7), 071005.
• Fang X., Zhou R., and Gebraeel N. (2015). An Adaptive Functional Regression-Based Prognostic Model for Applications with Missing Data. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 133, 266-274.
• Fang X., Paynabar K., and Gebraeel N. (2017). Image-Based Prognostics Using Penalized Tensor Regression. Technometrics. Conditionally accepted.

Assistant Professor
Ph.D. (2016), Purdue University

Research Interests: Applied statistics and simulation methodology, theory and algorithms, their integration with data science and analytics, with applications in infrastructure systems risk and decision analysis, human behavior modeling.

Shashaani received a B.Sc. degree in industrial engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology and in applied computing from Southern Cross University in Australia. She received a M.Sc. degree in industrial engineering from Purdue University and in operations research from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She earned her Ph.D. degree in industrial engineering from Purdue University. Prior to joining the NC State faculty, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan.

Her current research is extending adaptive sampling algorithms for simulation optimization problems, where the objective function is noisy and unknown, and derivative-free optimization problems, where no structure about the underlying function is known or available even with noise. She also studies improving probabilistic prediction models with regression trees, utilizing simulation optimization in feature selection of regression and classification problems, and treating the zero-inflation present in many infrastructure systems datasets such as weather induced power outages.

• Shashaani, S., Hashemi, F., & Pasupathy, R. (2018). ASTRO-DF: A class of adaptive sampling trust-region algorithms for derivative-free stochastic optimization. Accepted at SIAM Journal of Optimization.
• Shashaani, S., Hunter, S.R., & Pasupathy, R. (2016, December). ASTRO-DF: Adaptive sampling trust-region optimization algorithms, heuristics, and numerical experience. In Winter Simulation Conference (WSC), 2016 (pp. 554-565). IEEE.
• Shashaani, S., Guikema, S.D., Zhai, C., Quiring, S.M., Pino, J., 3-Stage Prediction Models for Power Outage under Hurricanes and Severe Events. Submitted To IEEE Access.
• Shashaani, S., Plumlee, M. and Guikema, S.D., Improving Classification and Regression Trees with Proper Scoring Rules. Under Preparation.
• Shashaani, S., and Guikema, S. D. Feature Selection for Hurricane Power Outage Prediction with Out of Bag Approaches and Simulation Optimization. Under Preparation.

Associate Professor
Ph.D. (2009), University of Michigan

Research Interests: Optimal control of tethered wind and marine hydrokinetic energy systems in spatiotemporally varying environments, economic optimal repetitive and iterative learning control, experimentally infused active system design (co-design), hierarchical model predictive control, connected and autonomous vehicles.

Vermillion completed his B.S.E. in aerospace and mechanical engineering (dual degree) and M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering, all at the University of Michigan. Following his doctoral work, Vermillion worked as a post-doctoral researcher and senior engineer at the Toyota Technical Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, conducting research related to the application of constrained optimal control approaches to the management of several competing objectives in advanced automotive powertrains.

Following his time at Toyota, Vermillion served as a lead engineer for an MIT-based startup, Altaeros, Inc., which is pioneering the design of a tethered wind energy system that uses a lighter-than-air shell to elevate a horizontal axis turbine to altitudes far in excess of towered turbines’ hub heights. Presently, he is the director of the Control and Optimization for Renewables and Energy Efficiency (CORE) Lab in NC State’s Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department. He is the recipient of the 2015 NSF CAREER Award, 2016 Maxheim Faculty Research Fellowship from UNC-Charlotte, and the 2017 College of Engineering Excellence in Teaching Award.

• Alireza Bafandeh, Shamir Bin-Karim, Ali Baheri, and Chris Vermillion, “A Comparative Assessment of Hierarchical Control Structures for Spatiotemporally-Varying Systems, with Application to Airborne Wind Energy,” Control Engineering Practice, Vol. 74, pp. 71-83, 2018.
• Shamir Bin-Karim, Alireza Bafandeh, Ali Baheri, and Chris Vermillion, “Spatiotemporal Optimization Through Gaussian Process Based Model Predictive Control: Case Study in Airborne Wind Energy,” IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, available online, 2017.
• Mitchell Cobb, Nihar Deodhar, and Chris Vermillion, “Lab-Scale Experimental Characterization and Dynamic Scaling Assessment for Closed-Loop Crosswind Flight of Airborne Wind Energy Systems,” ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control, Vol. 140, Issue 7, 2017.
• Ali Baheri, Shamir Bin-Karim, Alireza Bafandeh, and Chris Vermillion, “Real-Time Control Using Bayesian Optimization: A Case Study in Airborne Wind Energy Systems,” Control Engineering Practice, Vol. 69, pp. 131-140, 2017.

Assistant Professor
Ph.D. (2009), University of California, Los Angeles

Research Interests: Multifunctional additive manufacturing; Tunable metamaterial; Printing technologies for flexible and stretchable electronics.

Ryu received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2009 and his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in 2004 and 2006, respectively. After his graduate research, he completed a two-year postdoctoral training in plasmonic sensors at UCLA and also worked for Intel Corp. as a senior engineer. Prior to joining the NC State faculty, Ryu held the position of assistant professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

His research is focused on additive manufacturing, nanomanufacturing, and multifunctional composite materials with the applications of bio-inspired plasmonic sensing, tunable metamaterials, and 3-D printed stretchable electronics. Ryu was awarded the Summer Faculty Fellowship to the AFRL in 2015, 2016, and 2018. His research has been supported by U.S. Air Force and Argonne National Laboratory.

• E. Salcedo et al. “Simulation and Validation of Three Dimension Functionally Graded Materials by Material Jetting,” Additive Manufacturing, 22, 351-359 (2018).
• C. Cheng et al. “Tunable and weakly negative permittivity in carbon/silicon nitride composites with different carbonizing temperatures,” Carbon, 125, pp. 103-112 (2017).
• W. Gill et al. “3 Dimensional-Printed Micro-Container with Graphene Current Collector and Manganese Oxide Thin-Film as Cathodes of Li-Batteries,” Nanosci. Nanotechnol. Lett. 8, pp. 1095–1098 (2016).
• A. Chen et al. “Reduction in Migratory Phenotype in a Metastasized Breast Cancer Cell Line via Downregulation of S100A4 and GRM3,” Scientific Reports, 7, pp. 3459 (2017).
• S. Wang et al. “Subcellular Resolution Mapping of Endogenous Cytokine Secretion by Nano-Plasmonic-Resonator Sensor Array,” Nano Letters, Vol. 11, pp. 3431-3434 (2011).

Associate Professor
Ph.D. (2006), Purdue University

Research Interests: Advanced manufacturing of multifunctional ceramic composites; high temperature wireless sensor design and manufacturing; manufacturing process control through artificial intelligence.

Xu received her B.S. in electromechanical engineering from Qingdao University, her M.S. in mechanical manufacturing & automation from Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics, and her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Purdue University. Her research group studies high temperature sensing materials, smart ceramic composites, and artificial intelligence for process modeling. She is active in conducting research in the field of materials and advanced manufacturing and has attracted a high level of research funding ($5.5M). She has graduated six Ph.D. and five M.S. students. She has co-authored a textbook (Intelligent Systems: Modeling, Optimization and Control, CRC Press, 2008) and written four book chapters. She has published about 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and 30 refereed conference proceedings. She has eight U.S. patent applications.

She won the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award and was awarded the Society of Manufacturing Engineering (SME) Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award in 2011. She was the only recipient of the IEEE Education Society Teaching Award in 2015, chaired the first NSF National Wireless Research Collaboration Workshop in 2015 and has served as an associate editor of ASME Transactions, Journal of Micro- and Nano- Manufacturing since 2015.

• Xu, C. (2015). Multifunctional Flexible Ceramic Membranes. Naval Science and Technology – Future Force, 2, 26.
• Yang, J., Sprengard, J., Ju, L., Hao, A., Saei, M., Liang, R., Cheng, G. and Xu, C. (2016). Three-dimensional-linked Carbon Fiber-Carbon Nanotube Hybrid Structure for Enhancing Thermal Conductivity of Silicon Carbonitride Matrix Composites. Carbon, 108, 38-46.
• Yang, J., Downes, R., Schrand, A., Park, J G., Liang, R. and Xu, C. (2016). High Electrical Conductivity and Anisotropy of Aligned Carbon Nanotube Nanocomposites Reinforced by Silicon Carbonitride. Scripta Materialia, 124, 21-25.
• Liu, J., Li, J. and Xu, C. (2014). Interaction of the Cutting Tools and the Ceramic-reinforced Metal Matrix Composites during Micro-Machining: A Review. CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology, 7(2), 55-70.
• Zhao, R., Shao, G., Cao, Y., An, L. and Xu, C. (2014). Temperature Sensor Made of Polymer-Derived Ceramics for High-Temperature Applications. Sensors and Actuators: A. Physical, 219, 58-64.

Associate Professor
Ph.D. (2006), Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal

Research Interests: Ink-based formulations and processing of organic and hybrid organic-inorganic semiconducting materials for electronic, optoelectronic and energy applications; development of new methodologies for in situ and in operando studies of materials.

Amassian received his B.Eng. and Ph. D. in engineering physics from the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal in Canada. He was a postdoctoral associate in materials science and engineering at Cornell University. Prior to joining the NC State faculty, he was an associate professor of Materials Science and Engineering in the Division of Physical Sciences and Engineering at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia. He was a founding faculty member when he joined KAUST as an assistant professor in 2009. He was also named a Career Development SABIC Chair.

He is presently studying the solidification of semiconducting materials from solution, with emphasis on in situ diagnostics of the solidification process during solution-based coating and printing methods. He also seeks to establish process-structure-property-performance relationships in solution-processable organic (oligomer and polymer), quantum dot and hybrid perovskite semiconductors. Integration of the above semiconductors in devices include field-effect transistors, solar cells and smart windows.

• L. J. Richter, D. M. DeLongchamp, A. Amassian “Morphology Development in Solution-Processed Functional Organic Blend Films: An In Situ Viewpoint, ” Chemical Reviews 119, 6332–6366 (2017).
• A. R. Kirmani, …, E. H. Sargent, A. Amassian, “Overcoming the Ambient Manufacturability-Scalability-Performance Bottleneck in Colloidal Quantum Dot Photovoltaics.” Advanced Materials 2018, 1801661 DOI: 10.1002/adma.201801661.
• Y. Zhong, …, A. Amassian, “Blade-Coated Hybrid Perovskite Solar Cells with Efficiency >17%: An In Situ Investigation,” ACS Energy Letters 3 (2018) 1078-1085.
• L. Yu, …, F. Laquai, A. Amassian, “Programmable and Coherent Crystallization of Semiconductors,” Science Advances 3, e1602462 (2017).
• M. R. Niazi, … A. Amassian, “Solution-printed organic semiconductor blends exhibiting transport properties on par with single crystals,” Nature Communications 6, 8598 (2015).