Faculty

Highly skilled Niner Engineers are key to North Carolina’s continued rise in technology, energy and advanced manufacturing. Support for their education comes from Engineering North Carolina’s Future, an initiative backed by a $41.2 million investment in the University by the North Carolina General Assembly.

The investment, beginning in fall 2022 to the current fall semester, has yielded record-breaking student enrollment at the W.S. Lee College of Engineering and other significant advances.

In the Blue Ridge Mountain town of Lansing, North Carolina, a 10-foot wall of water surged through downtown in September 2024 when the banks of Big Horse Creek overflowed, destroying nearly every business on the main street. Beyond town, hundreds of Ashe County residents were cut off from food, essential supplies and medical care as the bridges that connected their homes to county roads and highways washed away. Over the past year, the paths of three Niner engineers — a determined alumna, a dedicated researcher and a motivated student — have converged, each working alongside family and friends, colleagues and classmates, to help rebuild the bridges of Ashe County.

In a first-of-its-kind project to study one of the planet’s last unexplored environments, Roger Tipton, UNC Charlotte research associate professor of mechanical engineering and engineering science, is leading a team of researchers from multiple universities that will investigate contaminants in the Arctic’s pristine waters.

UNC Charlotte’s William States Lee College of Engineering enters the 2025-2026 academic year with record-breaking enrollment, an expanded leadership team, nearly 30 new faculty and staff and new academic opportunities including an aerospace concentration.

Minhaj Nur Alam, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the Quantitative Imaging and AI Laboratory, is leading groundbreaking work in AI-assisted diagnostics for retinal diseases.

Dipankar Maity, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the William States Lee College of Engineering, earned the prestigious NSF CAREER Award in June of this year to support his investigations in how teams of smart machines, like connected robots, work together more reliably.

Xiang Chen, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, wins NSF CAREER award to explore the complexities of energy supportive materials. She is working to unravel these complex relationships and unlock the full potential of these ionic-conducting superlattices, pushing the boundaries of what’s currently possible in various technological fields.

William States Lee College of Engineering faculty have been recognized for their exceptional contributions to research, innovation, teaching and service. These achievements reflect the College’s ongoing commitment to engineering excellence and societal impact.

Faculty researchers from W.S. Lee College of Engineering were joined by fellow faculty from across UNC Charlotte as they were honored for leading research projects with $1 million or more in active, external funding in 2024.

James Amburgey, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Olya Keen, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, have been honored by the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) for innovation, naming them “Senior Members.” The announcement, made on February 20, 2025, honors distinguished academic inventors whose achievements in patents, licensing and commercialization have led to and have the potential to create meaningful differences in our world.