New Faculty 2017-2018

The Power of People

The William States Lee College of Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte is proud to announce the addition of our new faculty members for 2017. As educators and researchers, these individuals bring a wealth of experience and training from some of the best academic institutions and companies in the world.

Dr. Mihail Cutitaru

Teaching Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Old Dominion University, 2014

Dr. Cutitaru joins UNC Charlotte from Missouri University of Science and Technology, where he worked as an assistant teaching professor. He has extensive experience in teaching classes in the areas of embedded systems, computer architecture, digital design and senior design.

Research interests:

• Computer architecture
• Low-power computing
• Secure hardware

Dr. Venkata Duddu

Research Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering Ph.D. in Civil Engineering, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2012

Dr. Duddu graduated with a Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering focused on transportation engineering in 2012. His focus and experience is in applying the scientific principles that govern the operations of transportation systems and using those underlying concepts to improve overall system performance.

Research interests:

• Transportation planning
• Traffic safety, reliability and accessibility
• Congestion management
• Big data applications in transportation

Dr. Somasundaram Essakiappan

Teaching Professor, Energy Production and Infrastructure Center Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Texas A&M University, 2014

Dr. Essakiappan joined EPIC in 2016 as a teaching professor and manager of the Flexible Power Laboratories Suite. Prior to that he was a lecturer at Texas A&M University and then a post-doctoral fellow at EPIC working on next-generation power electronics applications for the electric utility grid. His Ph.D. studies focused on grid integration of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power, and battery energy storage systems.

Research interests:

• Power electronics for distributed generation and energy storage
• Distributed control techniques for electric grid modernization
• Power quality improvement
• Energy economics in the grid of the future

Dr. Konstantinos Falaggis

Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Science Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds, 2011

Dr. Falaggis obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Leeds, UK, in the area of multi-wavelength interferometry. From 2012 to 2015 he was a post-doctoral research associate at the Warsaw University of Technology, Poland. From 2015 to 2017 he worked at the Mexican national laboratories National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics, and Ensenada Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education, and was awarded membership to the Mexican National System of Scientists.

Research interests:

• Optical metrology employing coherent, partial-coherent or incoherent illumination
• Computational methods that improve or enable modern approaches to precision metrology
• Image and signal-processing techniques

Clint Halstead

Lecturer, Engineering Technology and Construction Management Masters in Electrical Engineering, University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, 1999

Mr. Halsted joined the ETCM Department in 2017 as a full-time lecturer. He holds an MS in Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and is currently pursuing his Ph.D. at UNC Charlotte. He previously worked for 11 years designing products in the electronics industry for commercial and military applications. He holds two U.S. patents and is responsible for the integrated circuit design of several commercially available dc-dc converter integrated circuits. He was a certified IPC CIT trainer from 2014-16 and also serves on the Power America board.

Research interests:

• Power electronics in grid-connected renewable energy applications
• Mixed-signal IC design of switch-mode power controllers
• Battery charger circuit board design
• FPGA-based design
• Radio frequency circuit board design

Dr. Rodward Hewlin Jr.

Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering Technology Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, North Carolina A&T State University, 2015

Dr. Hewlin comes to UNC Charlotte from NCA&T, where he was a research associate and from Guilford Technical Community College where he served as department chair of Engineering, Physics and Astronomy. He has an extensive research background in the area of transient cardiovascular flow and medical implant design analysis, as well as magnetic manipulation techniques of nanoscale superparamagnetic iron particles for medical drug delivery. He is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering in the Fluids Engineering Division.

Research interests:

• Electromagnetic and medical drug delivery
• Heat and mass transport
• Physiochemical hydrodynamics
• Medical implant design and analysis
• High-g, micro-g and zero-g applications

Dr. Thomas Koch

Associate Teaching Professor, Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Science Ph.D. in Physical Analytical Chemistry, University of Utah, 1986

Dr. Koch joins UNC Charlotte from Steag where he worked as a bench lab manager on selective catalytic reduction of flue gases by catalysts. He has an extensive applied research background in dyestuff production and testing, designing and manufacturing of analytical liquid handling systems, and teaching experience at the university and professional levels. Dr. Koch is also the safety officer of MEES and works with TAs and students on that subject.

Research interests:

• Optimization of the textile dyeing process
• Design and manufacturing of dye-bath monitors
• Optimization of mechanical/chemical systems

H. Seth Martin

Lecturer, Engineering Technology and Construction Management M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Dalarna University, Sweden, 2006

Mr. Martin joins UNC Charlotte after lecturing for three years in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at BYU-Idaho. Prior to starting at BYU-Idaho, he worked as a project engineer for General Dynamics in the aerospace composites industry. He also worked in the UV-cured composite pipe industry and helped transition licensed technology to a Virginia manufacturing facility. His undergraduate and graduate emphases were in solar energy.

Research interests:

• Solar energy engineering
• High-temperature composites
• Microhistories of technology and culture

Dr. Michael Mazzola

Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering and Director of the Energy Production and Infrastructure Center (EPIC) Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Old Dominion University, 1990

Dr. Mazzola joins UNC Charlotte from Mississippi State University, where he was a professor of electrical and computer engineering and held the Jack Hatcher Endowed Chair for Engineering Entrepreneurship. He served as an associate director in the Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems at MSU, where he was responsible for advanced vehicle systems. He managed a team of research engineers and faculty in the areas of hybrid electric vehicles, autonomous vehicle systems and their control, and software tools for power-system modeling and simulation using high-performance computing.

Research interests:

• Applications of power electronics based on wide bandgap semiconductors
• HPC based modeling and simulation of electric power systems
• Medium- and high-voltage power system design and testing
• Lightning simulation and related effects on aerospace systems

Dr. Tiantian Nie

Assistant Professor, Systems Engineering and Engineering Management Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering, North Carolina State University, 2016

Dr. Nie joins UNC Charlotte from North Carolina State University, where she completed her doctoral studies in Industrial Engineering. Her research focuses on developing optimization tools and applying them for systems modeling, analysis and improvement in various engineering aspects.

Research interests:

• Nonlinear and discrete optimization
• L1 splines data analytics
• Power and network systems

Dr. Jacelyn Rice

Assistant Professor, Engineering Technology and Construction Management Ph.D. in Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering, Arizona State, 2014

Dr. Rice worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Duke University prior to joining UNC Charlotte. During the last year of her postdoc she served as a Fulbright Scholar, teaching and researching at the International Institute of Water and Environmental Engineering (2IE) in Burkina Faso. Her professional experience includes working as a civil engineer for Kimley-Horn and Associates, contracting with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and American Water Works Association, and several internships within the public and private sector.

Research interests:

• Effects of urbanization on water quality
• Stormwater management and green infrastructure
• Transport of emerging contaminants due to indirect reuse of treated wastewater
• Coupled natural and human systems approach to the water-energy nexus

Dr. Scott Rockwell

Assistant Professor, Engineering Technology and Construction Management Ph.D. in Fire Protection Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 2012

Dr. Rockwell joins UNC Charlotte from Eastern Kentucky University where he taught courses on fire behavior and combustion, hydraulics, fire dynamics, fire prevention and quantitative analysis. His research focuses mainly on turbulent burning velocity of dust and hybrid flames, dust explosion fire ball dimensions, virtual laboratories and the use of digital media in fire and combustion education, and active learning and teaching techniques that minimize students’ cognitive loads.

Research interests:

• Turbulent burning velocity of dust and hybrid fuel mixtures
• Dust explosion fire ball dimensions
• Fire metrology
• Wildland fires

Dr. Fareena Saqib

Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of New Mexico, 2014

Dr. Saqib worked as an assistant professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Florida Institute of Technology prior to joining UNC Charlotte. Her background is in hardware security, Internet of Things, and embedded systems. Her main research focus is in hardware security and trust. She has won NSF grants for the implementation of hardware-based authentication and trusted-platform-module functions for Internet of Things, and for hardware security attack and countermeasure evaluation. She serves on a number of committees and as a reviewer for IEEE, and as a panelist for NSF and another collaborative seed-grant programs.

Research interests:

• Hardware security and trust
• Internet of Things security
• Supply chain risk management and security
• Physical unclonable functions based authentication

Dr. Omidreza Shoghli

Assistant Professor, Engineering Technology and Construction Management

Ph.D. in Civil Engineering, Virginia Tech, 2014

Dr. Shoghli was an assistant professor in the Kimmel School of Construction Management at Western Carolina University. Prior to that, he earned his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Virginia Tech, where his research was related to infrastructure asset management, decision making in construction, sustainable infrastructure, and multi-objective optimization. Dr. Shoghli’s professional experiences include working at Virginia Tech’s Transportation Institute and at Mahab Consulting Engineering Company.

Research interests:

• Infrastructure asset management
• Sustainable and resilient infrastructure
• Decision making and optimization in construction