The University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering welcomes the following new faculty:
Tiravat Assavapokee joined the Department of Industrial Engineering as an assistant professor. He received a Ph.D. and M.S. in Industrial Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2004 and 2001, respectively. His research areas include strategic supply chain system planning, forward and reserve production system planning, robust optimization models, stochastic optimization models and applications of bi-level programming.
Omer Bilgin joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering as an assistant professor. Previously, he was an Exponent Failure Analysis Associate Engineer in Los Angeles, California. He received a Ph.D. in civil engineering from Cornell University in 1999, M.S. in civil engineering from Oklahoma State University in 1995, and B.S. in civil engineering from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey in 1991. He is a registered professional engineer.
Yuhua Chen joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering as an assistant professor. Previously, she was a research associate working in the Applied Research Laboratory in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. She received a D.Sc. in electrical engineering, M.S. in computer science, and M.S. in electrical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis in 2003, 1998 and 1997, respectively. She also received a B.S. in electrical engineering from Fudan University in 1995. Her research areas include embedded reconfigurable systems, optical networks and system prototyping.
Valery Kalatsky joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering as an assistant professor. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Keck Center for Integrative Neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco and in the Materials Science Division at National Argonne Laboratory. He received a Ph.D. in physics from Texas A&M University in 1999, and M.S. and B.S. in applied physics and mathematics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 1994 and 1991, respectively. His research is focused on neuroengineering and he has conducted research into further improvements in the imaging of brain activity and developed a new paradigm for optical imaging of intrinsic signals in the brain.
Kirill Larin joined the Biomedical Engineering program and the Department of Mechanical Engineering as an assistant professor. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Among his many awards and honors, Larin received the 1997 Yeltsin Presidential Award for young scientists. He received a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering and M.S. in physiology and biophysics from UTMB Galveston in 2002 and 2001, respectively. He received his M.S. in laser physics and mathematics and B.S in physics with an emphasis in optics from Saratov State University in Russia in 1995 and 1994, respectively.
Bhavin Sheth joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering as an assistant professor. Previously, he was a research scientist at the California Institute of Technology. He received a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1996. He also received his M.S. in electrical engineering and M.S. and B.S. in computer science from the University of Southern California in 1991 and 1989, respectively. His research focuses on neuroengineering and cognitive neuroscience and he is studying perception, action and the functions of sleep in learning and memory.
Engineering faculty who joined the college in Spring 2004:
Jinho "Gino" Lim joined the Department of Industrial Engineering as an assistant professor in January 2004. Previously, he was a postdoctoral research associate in the Computer Sciences Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he received a Ph.D. and M.S. in Industrial Engineering in 2002 and 1998, respectively. He received his B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Korea University in 1994. His research areas include optimization, operations research qpplications in health systems, financial engineering, statistical process control and forecasting models and analysis.
Pradeep Sharma joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering as an assistant professor in January 2004. Previously, he was a research scientist for General Electric Corp. R&D. He is a chartered physicist with the Institute of Physics in London. He received a Ph.D. in micromechanics from the University of Maryland in 2000 and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in India in 1994.
Veronique Tran joined the Biomedical Engineering program and the Department of Chemical Engineering as an assistant professor in January 2004. Previously, she was a postdoctoral associate in the Biomedical Engineering Department at Yale University. She received a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas in 2002. She worked at Shell Oil Company after earning her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Houston in 1991.
College-wide hires:
David Starnes joined the college as the senior director of development. As the chief development officer for the college, he will spearhead the college's major gifts efforts and lead the engineering development team in their efforts. He has over 17 years experience in higher education and non-profit fund raising. He received a BBA in marketing management from Baylor University in 1980 and is a certified fund raising executive.
Julie Trenor joined the college as an adjunct assistant professor and director of undergraduate recruitment, where she will be in charge of all recruitment efforts for the college and will teach some of the freshman-level courses. Previously, she was a visiting assistant professor in the Division of Engineering Fundamentals at Virginia Tech, where she taught freshman level general engineering courses and a senior level polymeric materials class in materials science and engineering. She was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Bioengineering at Clemson University. She received a Ph.D. in materials engineering from Virginia Tech in 2001 and B.S. in materials science engineering from the North Carolina State University in 1996.
Chad Wilson joins the college as director of technical communication instruction. He is a participant in the newly established engineering communications across the curriculum program. He will emphasize technical writing and presentation skills. Previously, he was an assistant professor at Prairie View A&M University. He received a Ph.D. in literature from the University of Houston in 2004, M.S. and B.S. in English from Clemson University in 1998 and 1996, respectively.