This year, UC Riverside’s Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering (BCOE) welcomed 17 new faculty members, bringing its total faculty cohort to 129. Among the additions are the new engineering dean, a distinguished engineering professor, three provost diversity fellows, a Fulbright Scholar, a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER awardee, and two assistant research engineers. These esteemed new faculty members will aid in BCOE’s mission to build on over a quarter century of innovation and research and strengthens our commitment to educating a diverse population of students.

BCOE is a leader in engineering research and education. In just the past two years, the college moved 10 ranks to No. 61 nationally and No. 33 among public engineering colleges by U.S. News and World Report. In addition, UC Riverside has more active NSF CAREER awards, totaling $16.5 million, than any other public university in California. Following is a list of new engineering faculty along with a research highlight:

Bioengineering

Giulia Palermo, Assistant Professor
Ph.D., Italian Institute of Technology and University of Genova
Swiss NSF Fellow

Jia Guo, Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of California, San Diego
Postdoctoral researcher, Lucas Imaging Center at Stanford University

Elena Kokkoni, Assistant Research Engineer
Ph.D., University of Delaware
UD NSF I-Corps Mini Grant

Chemical and Environmental Engineering

Michael R. Zachariah, Distinguished Professor
Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles
University of Maryland School of Engineering Faculty Outstanding Researcher Award

Don Collins, Professor
Ph.D., California Institute of Technology
Distinguished Achievement College-Level Award in Teaching

Cesunica Ivey, Assistant Professor
Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology
UCR Provost Diversity Engineering Faculty Fellow

Kandis Leslie Gilliard Abdul-Aziz, Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
UCR Provost Diversity Engineering Faculty Fellow

Computer Science and Engineering

Manu Sridharan, Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
Outstanding Artifact Award

Paea LePendu, Professor of Teaching
Ph.D., Stanford University
Distinguished Paper (Disease Enrichment), American Medical Informatics Association

Mariam Salloum, Professor of Teaching
Ph.D., University of California, Riverside
Co-Chair, WTS 2016 Big Data in Telecommunications Workshop

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Ran Cheng, Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin
Post doctorate, Carnegie Mellon University

Samet Oymak, Assistant Professor
Ph.D., California Institute of Technology
Simons-Berkeley Research Fellowship 

Hossein Taheri, Assistant Research Engineer
Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology
Scholarship and Research Grant, Center for Academic Partnership, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) NASA

Mechanical Engineer

Christopher Lynch, Dean
Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara
Fellow, ASME and SPIE

Mona Eskandari, Assistant Professor
Ph.D., Stanford University
UCR Provost Diversity Engineering Research Faculty Fellow

Luat Vuong, Assistant Professor
Ph.D., Cornell University
Fulbright Scholar

Bhargav Rallabandi, Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Best Paper Award, Carbon Mitigation Initiative of Princeton University