Growth and Transformation

UVA Engineering welcomes a diverse cohort of new faculty members for 2020-2021, continuing the school's remarkable growth and transformation and driving innovation in research and education. Since 2014, UVA Engineering's faculty has grown by 29%, from 204 to 263. Of our 263 faculty in 2020, 181 are tenured or tenure-track faculty, and 82 are academic general faculty. They are the key to achieving UVA Engineering's mission to make the world a better place by creating and disseminating knowledge and by preparing engineering leaders to solve global challenges. Meet our new faculty below, in addition to those who joined in recent years.

New Faculty 2020-2021

New Faculty 2019-2020

  • Robert J. Archer

    Robert J. Archer

    Department of Engineering & Society

    Robert J. Archer is a lecturer in the Department of Engineering and Society, specializing in teaching and encouraging technology entrepreneurship and product development.

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  • Shannon Barker

    Shannon Barker

    Department of Biomedical Engineering

    Shannon Barker is an assistant professor and the undergraduate program director in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Prior to joining the Biomedical Engineering Department, she served as director of graduate studies for the School of Engineering. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Alabama Birmingham in 2002.

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  • Adam Barnes

    Adam Barnes

    Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Adam Barnes is a senior lecturer in the Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is a AAAS member and interested in advancing engineering and science in both rising engineers and the general public.

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  • Charles P. (Chip) Blankenship

    Charles P. (Chip) Blankenship

    Department of Materials Science and Engineering

    Charles P. "Chip" Blankenship is a professor of practice in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Prior to his appointment, he served as chief executive officer and director of Arconic, Inc.

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  • Mehdi Boukhechba

    Mehdi Boukhechba

    Department of Engineering Systems & Environment

    Mehdi Boukhechba is an assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Systems and Environment. His primary research interests are in health informatics and pervasive systems, specifically studying how technology-based interventions can improve patient health outcomes.

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  • Sepideh Dolatshahi

    Sepideh Dolatshahi

    Department of Biomedical Engineering

    Sepideh Dolatshahi will join the faculty of the Department of Biomedical Engineering in January 2020. Her research focuses on developing new systems biology approaches to understand fundamental mechanisms of immune regulation and dysregulation, with an ultimate objective of identifying strategies to improve immunotherapies.

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  • Afsaneh Doryab

    Afsaneh Doryab

    Department of Engineering Systems & Environment

    Afsaneh Doryab is an assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Systems and Environment. Her research is at the intersection of health, mobile and ubiquitous computing, artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction.

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  • Farzad Dizaji

    Farzad Dizaji

    Department of Engineering & Society

    Farzad Dizaji is a lecturer in the Department of Engineering and Society in the area of applied mathematics.

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  • Pamela Faggert

    Pamela Faggert

    Department of Chemical Engineering

    Pamela Faggert will join UVA Engineering's Chemical Engineering Department in May as the 2020 Brenton S. Halsey Distinguished Visiting Professor in Chemical Engineering. She most recently served as chief environmental officer and senior vice president for sustainability at Dominion Energy.

    Brenton S. Halsey Distinguished Visiting Professorship in Chemical Engineering
  • Tomonari Furukawa

    Tomonari Furukawa

    Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering

    Tomonari Furukawa is a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. The focus of his research is autonomous systems.

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  • Seongkook Heo

    Seongkook Heo

    Department of Computer Science

    Seongkook Heo is the Alfred Weaver Career Enhancement Assistant Professor of Computer Science. His research interests span across the areas of human-computer interaction, with focuses on developing interactive technologies and interaction techniques. 

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  • Tariq Iqbal

    Tariq Iqbal

    Department of Engineering Systems & Environment

    Tariq Iqbal is an assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Systems and Environment. His research focuses on building robotic systems that can fluently coordinate and collaborate with people in complex human environments

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  • Richard Jacques

    Department of Engineering & Society

    Richard Jacques is a lecturer in the Department of Engineering and Society, focused on science, technology and society.

    Department of Engineering & Society
  • Jundong Li

    Jundong Li

    Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Jundong Li is an assistant professor in the Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, with joint appointments in the Department of Computer Science and the UVA School of Data Science. His research interests are in data mining, machine learning and social computing.

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  • Michael Momot

    Michael Momot

    Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering

    Michael Momot is a distinguished lecturer in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. His interests include artificial intelligence, hierarchical control of automated systems and pedagogy as applied to engineering.

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  • Paul (Will) McBurney

    Paul (Will) McBurney

    Department of Computer Science

    Paul "Will" McBurney is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science. He specializes in teaching introductory programming and software engineering.

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  • Robert Riggs

    Robert Riggs

    Department of Engineering Systems & Environment

    Robert Riggs is an assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Systems and Environment. His research interest include integer programming and combinatorial optimization, health care systems engineering, Six Sigma and process improvement, applying lean enterprise to health care and manufacturing applications, optimization of disassembly and remanufacturing systems.

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  • Sara Riggs

    Sara Riggs

    Department of Engineering Systems & Environment

    Sara Riggs is an assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Systems and Environment. Her research focuses on task sharing, attention management and interruption management in complex environments that have included aviation, health care, military operations and manufacturing.

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  • Tom Seabrook

    Tom Seabrook

    Department of Engineering & Society

    Tom Seabrook is a lecturer in the Department of Engineering and Society, focused on science, technology and society.

    Department of Engineering & Society
  • Cong Shen

    Cong Shen

    Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering

    Cong Shen is an assistant professor in the Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His general research interests are in the area of communication theory, wireless communications and machine learning.

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  • Tao Sun

    Tao Sun

    Department of Materials Science & Engineering

    Tao Sun is an associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He and his team study additive manufacturing processes and materials using synchrotron x-ray and other in situ/ex situ characterization tools.

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  • Yixin Sun

    Yixin Sun

    Department of Computer Science

    Yixin Sun will join UVA Engineering in January 2020 as the Anita Jones Career Enhancement Assistant Professor of Computer Science with a joint appointment in the Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Her broad research interests are network security and privacy.

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  • Rupa Valdez

    Rupa Valdez

    Department of Engineering Systems & Environment

    Rupa Valdez is an assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Systems and Environment with an appointment in public health sciences at UVA. Her research focuses on understanding and supporting the ways in which people manage health at home and in the community.

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  • Robert (Ted) Williams

    Department of Engineering & Society

    Robert "Ted" Williams is a lecturer in the Department of Engineering and Society, with a focus on applied mathematics.

    Department of Engineering & Society
  • Haifeng Xu

    Haifeng Xu

    Department of Computer Science

    Haifeng Xu is the Alan Batson Career Enhancement Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science. His research interests include algorithms and optimization, artificial intelligence, computational game theory and machine learning.

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  • Miaomiao Zhang

    Miaomiao Zhang

    Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Miaomiao Zhang is an assistant professor in the Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, with a joint appointment in the Department of Computer Science. Her research interests are image registration/segmentation, statistical shape analysis and machine learning.

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New Faculty 2018-2019

  • Christopher L. Barrett

    Christopher L. Barrett

    Department of Computer Science

    Christopher L. Barrett is UVA's inaugural Distinguished Professor in Biocomplexity, executive director of the Biocomplexity Institute, and professor of computer science. He is an interdisciplinary computational scientist who has published more than 100 research articles exploring large multi-scale interaction systems.

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  • Cindy Chang

    Cindy Chang

    Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering

    Cindy Chang is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering with a joint appointment in the Department of Engineering Systems and Environment. Her research has focused on improving sustainability and efficiency of smart manufacturing systems.

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  • Venkataraman Lakshmi

    Venkataraman Lakshmi

    Department of Engineering Systems & Environment

    Venkataraman Lakshmi is a professor in the Department of Engineering Systems and Environment. His areas of research interest are catchment hydrology, satellite data validation and assimilation, field experiments, land-atmosphere interactions, satellite data downscaling, vadose zone and water resources.

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  • Madhav Marathe

    Madhav Marathe

    Department of Computer Science

    Madhav Marathe is an endowed Distinguished Professor in Biocomplexity, professor of computer science and leader in UVA's Biocomplexity Institute and Initiative. He is a passionate advocate and practitioner of transdisciplinary team science.

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  • Richard Martukanitz

    Richard Martukanitz

    Department of Materials Science & Engineering

    Richard Martukanitz is a research professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and a fellow in additive manufacturing at the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing. His current emphasis is the impact of additive manufacturing materials and processes on product performance.

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  • Henning Mortveit

    Henning Mortveit

    Department of Engineering Systems & Environment

    Henning Mortveit is an associate professor in the Department of Engineering Systems and Environment and the Network Systems Science and Advanced Computing division in the UVA Biocomplexity Institute and Initiative.

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  • Anil Vullikanti

    Anil Vullikanti

    Department of Computer Science

    Anil Vullikanti is a professor of computer science and a member of the Biocomplexity Institute. His research interests are broadly in the areas of randomized algorithms, combinatorial optimization, distributed computing, dynamical systems and network science, machine learning, and AI, and their applications to epidemiology, public health and modeling, analysis and protection of critical infrastructures.

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  • David Wu

    David Wu

    Department of Computer Science

    David Wu is the Anita Jones Career Enhancement Assistant Professor of computer science. His research interests are applied and theoretical cryptography and computer security.

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  • Aidong Zhang

    Aidong Zhang

    Department of Computer Science

    Aidong Zhang is the William Wulf Professor of Computer Science with a joint appointment in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. She is a faculty affiliate of the UVA School of Data Science. Her research interests are data mining/data science, machine learning, bioinformatics and health informatics.

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