EECS Hires New Faculty

Alessandro Salandrino is joining the department as an Assistant Professor. He received his "Laurea" degree in Electrical Engineering with a specialization in Applied Electromagnetics, from the University of Rome RomaTre. After graduating with a Ph.D. in Optics and Photonics from CREOL, the College of Optics at the University of Central Florida, he joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California Berkeley as a postdoctoral research associate. His main research interests are in nanophotonics, with a particular emphasis on nano-structured systems such as metamaterials and plasmonic devices. Among his main contributions to the field of nanophotonics are the invention of a far-field subdiffraction imaging system known as "Hyperlens", and the introduction of the Airy Plasmons, a novel class of diffraction-free surface plasmon polaritons.

Suzanne M. Shontz is joining the department as an Associate Professor. In 2012, she received a 2011 National Science Foundation (NSF) Presidential Early CAREER Award in Science and Engineering (NSF PECASE Award) from President Obama "for exemplary research in computational and data-enabled science and engineering that bridges applied mathematics, computer science, and scientific applications, and for contributions to education, including new curricula and approaches that encourage diversity in this field. " Her research is on parallel dynamic meshing algorithms, theory, and software for simulation-assisted medical interventions. In 2012 and 2013, she co-chaired the NSF CyberBridges Workshop for junior faculty with NSF CAREER Awards in cyberinfrastructure and related areas. In 2010, she chaired the International Meshing Roundtable, which is the top conference in unstructured mesh generation. In 2009, she received an Office of Naval Research Summer Faculty Fellowship for her research in geometry optimization of materials. She earned her Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Cornell University where she was a National Physical Science Consortium Fellow.

Guanghui Wang is joining the department as an Assistant Professor. He completed his Ph.D. at University of Waterloo, Canada. He was also a visiting researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. From 2006 to 20I0, he was a research fellow at the University of Windsor, Canada. From 2003 to 2005, he was a research fellow and visiting scholar at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. From 2000 to 2004, he was a research assistant with the National Laboratory of Pattern Recognition, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Guanghui's research interests include computer vision, image processing, structure from motion, camera calibration, artificial intelligence, and robotics. He was a Principal Investigator/Co-PI of seven national research projects in Canada and China. He has published a book, “Guide to Three Dimensional Structure and Motion Factorization” Springer-Verlag, 2010; three book chapters; and over 60 papers in peer-reviewed journals and conferences. He served on the editorial board of five journals, as an area chair or TPC member of more than 20 conferences. He received one best paper award, two research excellence awards, three teaching excellence awards, and several major scholarships.

Yang (Cindy) Yi is joining the department as an Assistant Professor. She received her Ph.D. at Texas A&M University in Computer Engineering, and her M.S., B.S. degrees at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Prior to joining KU, she spent more than 5 years at IBM, Freescale, Intel, and Texas Instruments. She has over 25 publications in various international journals and conference proceedings. Her research interests include computer-aided design (CAD), high-speed interconnect modeling and analysis, and low-power circuits design with advanced nano-technologies. She was selected as the Air Force (AF) Summer Faculty Fellow in 2014. She received two equipment grants from Texas Instruments University Program (TIUP) and NVIDIA Academic Partnership Program (NAPP) in 2013. She is an associate editor for Cyber Journal of Selected Areas in Microelectronics (ISAM).