College adds nine new faculty for 2021-22 academic year

The College of Engineering has added nine new faculty for 2021-22, increasing total faculty hires to 54 over the past five years.

The new faculty include four in the School of Computing, two in Civil and Environmental Engineering, and one each in the Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Mechanical and Materials Engineering. Three faculty were also added to the Department of Biological Systems Engineering on East Campus.

The new College of Engineering faculty include:

Muhammad Naveed Aman, assistant professor of Computer Science and Engineering/School of Computing
Aman comes to Nebraska after having served as assistant professor of electrical engineering at FAST-National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences in Pakistan. He has master's and doctoral degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Among Aman's research interests are Internet of Things (IoT) security, cyber physical systems security, blockchain, machine learning, hardware security, and wireless and mobile networks.

Sasitharan Balasubramaniam, associate professor of Computer Science and Engineering/School of Computing
Before joining the College of Engineering, Balasubramaniam was director of research for the Telecommunications Software and Systems Group at Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland and an academy research fellow in the Nano Communications Centre of Tampere University of Technology in Finland. His areas of research interest include molecular and nanoscale communication (including bacterial and neural molecular communication systems), brain-machine interface, terahertz communication, and bioinspired networks.

Jason Hawkins, assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Hawkins joins the college after stints as a transportation and spatial economic modeler at HBA Specto Inc., in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Calgary and a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. His research focuses on travel demand forecasting, choice model and survey methods, energy and GHG emissions of infrastructure, fusing special econometrics and machine learning on large datasets, and emerging mobility.

Qiang Liu, assistant professor of Computer Science and Engineering/School of Computing
Liu is a former research intern at Nokia Bell Labs, Toyota InfoTech Labs, and Facebook Reality Labs. He has a master of communication and information systems from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China and a doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Research interests include designing and developing wireless technology and computing systems in industrial research labs, wireless networking, edge computing, network slicing, LTE/5G computer networks, and machine learning.

Nitesh Nama, assistant professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering
Nama previously was an American Heart Association post-doctoral fellow and a post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of Surgery at the University of Michigan. He has a master's degree in mathematics and a Ph.D. in engineering science and mechanics from Pennsylvania State University. Among his areas of research interest are biomechanics: image-based modeling of cardiovascular hemodynamics and mass transport, biomechanics of cardiovascular diseases, biomedical microfluidics of lab-on-a-chip systems, and the physics of microfluidic processes.

Shuai Nie, assistant professor of Computer Science and Engineering/School of Computing
Nie has experience as a visiting researcher at the A.A. Kharkevich Institute for Information Transmission Problems at the Russian Academy of Sciences. Nie earned a doctorate in electrical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and was a graduate research assistant there in the Broadband Wireless Networking Laboratory. Research areas include millimeter wave and Terahertz band communications, physical layer channel modeling, multiple-antenna techniques, intelligent surface communication systems, and machine learning for wireless communications.

Logan Perry, assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Perry comes to Nebraska from Virginia Tech, where he earned a master's degree in civil engineering and a Ph.D. in engineering education. At Virginia Tech, Perry was also a graduate research assistant in civil and environmental engineering and in engineering education. Among Perry's research interests are the transfer of learning, transitions between engineering school and work, and cyberlearning (virtual and mixed reality technology) in engineering education.

Yanan (Laura) Wang, assistant professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Wang joins the college after having performed post-doctoral research at Case Western University and the University of Electronic Science of China and was a research assistant scientist at the University of Florida. Wang has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Houston. Her areas of research include nano/microelectromechanical systems (NEMS/MEMS) based on two-dimensional (2D) crystals, single-photon quantum emitters in novel materials, photonic/phononic devices and transducers for integrated quantum circuits and scalable systems, and sensing and signal processing.

Emmeline Watson, assistant professor of practice in the Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction
Formerly a structures engineer and certification coordinator at Duncan Aviation, Watson graduated from the College of Engineering with a master's degree in engineering mechanics. She also has a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Federal University of Ceara, Brazil.

The new additions to the Department of Biological Systems Engineering, which is situated in both the College of Engineering and the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, include:

Andrew Hamann, research assistant professor of Biological Systems Engineering
Hamann earned two graduate degrees from the College of Engineering – a master of agricultural and biological systems engineering and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering – after completing work on a bachelor's degree in biology at Doane University. His research includes chemical priming to enhance gene delivery to stem cells.

Wei-zehn Liang, research assistant professor of Biological Systems Engineering/Panhandle Research and Extension Center (Scottsbluff, Nebraska)
Coming to Nebraska after working as a post-doctoral research fellow at Clemson University, Liang has a master of biological and agricultural engineering from North Carolina State University and a Ph.D. in agricultural and biological engineering from Purdue University. Liang's academic experience includes application of image analysis crop and livestock management, advanced crop and livestock modeling, Internet of Things, and precision agriculture.

Yijie Xiong, assistant professor of Animal Sciences/Biological Systems Engineering
Xiong earned both a master's and doctorate in agricultural engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign after receiving a bachelor's of agricultural structure and environmental engineering from China Agricultural University. Her research interests include animal housing environmental control, precision livestock management and applied data analysis in agriculture.