Faculty

The William States Lee College of Engineering is leading critical investigations with key research faculty at an increasing rate, as demonstrated by a 25+ percent increase in research funding in the past year ($13,660,952 in 2021-2022 to $17.8M in 2022-2023). Likewise, UNC Charlotte overall is continuing to demonstrate innovation leadership and growth, being ranked fourth in the nation for patents per research dollar.

Hamed Tabkhi, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, is working with community stakeholders and researchers from the criminal justice and criminology, electrical and computer engineering, and civil and environmental engineering departments and the Center for Applied Geographic Information Science, to “co-create and co-design” solutions to public safety with AI.

Qiang Zhu, associate professor of mechanical engineering, leverages informatics, computational research and modeling to advance the understanding of organic materials, directly leading to greater ability to generate clean energy. Zhu earned both an NSF CAREER Award and a Department of Energy Early Career Award which are furthering his studies at William States Lee College of Engineering.

Dr. Jy Wu, Infrastructure and Environmental Systems, was selected to receive the Thomas L. Reynolds Leadership Award for 2022-23. The most recent Graduate Program Excellence Award recipients, originally announced in May, were honored Sept. 20 in a reception held in the Student Union Art Gallery.