Star Scholars

Four Faculty Earn NSF CAREER Awards

Four faculty in the College of Engineering received Faculty Early Career Development Program awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to advance their research and education initiatives.

The award, known as CAREER, is the NSF's highest honor for junior faculty. Recipients are recognized as outstanding researchers who will become leaders in educational excellence and in the integration of education and research at their home institutions.

Michelle Hummel, an associate professor of civil engineering, received her award to study flood mitigation in coastal communities. She is collaborating with local and regional officials to improve management of the adaptation measures used to mitigate flooding from coastal and terrestrial sources.

Chen Kan, an assistant professor of industrial engineering, received his award to develop an AI-based computational framework to monitor and optimize the additive manufacturing process for metamaterials, which are engineered materials that have mechanical and other properties not found in natural materials.

Habeeb Olufowobi, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering, received his award to develop methods to protect connected autonomous vehicles' high-level software and low-level hardware from cyber-physical attacks and misuse by hackers.

Yichen Zhang, an assistant professor of electrical engineering, received his award to enhance power system stability and safety in the presence of large-scale inverter-based resources by leveraging their emerging grid-forming control mode.

“Each of these early-career faculty are enthusiastic about their research, and their work shows tremendous promise in contributing solutions to today's issues,” says Gautam Das, associate dean for research. “The CAREER Awards are a testament to their quality of work and potential for future successes as academic role models in research and education, and we are lucky to have them in our ranks.” ₪