Making an Impact Around the World

18 of our early career faculty members have received national awards in the past 5 years.

Here at UB's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, we are attracting some of the world's brightest young researchers to the Buffalo Niagara region. Our national award-winning junior faculty are among the most promising and talented researchers in the country.

With recognition from highly competitive federal research programs such as the National Science Foundation CAREER Award Program and the Department of Defense Young Investigator Programs, they are building a foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research.

What is a National Science Foundation CAREER Award?

The CAREER Award is the National Science Foundation's most prestigious award in support of junior faculty. The awards are given to outstanding scientists who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through research, education, and the integration of education and research.

The award comes with a federal grant for research and education activities for five consecutive years. The National Science Foundation (NSF) grants these awards once a year. The reviewing, award and selection process is one of the most competitive within the NSF.

What are Department of Defense Young Investigator Program Awards?

The Department of Defense offers early career research awards through the Air Force, Army and Navy. Known as the Young Investigator Program (YIP), the awards support academic scientists who have received a PhD or equivalent degree within the last five years and who show exceptional promise for doing creative research.

*Only current SEAS faculty members are listed.

NSF CAREER Award Recipients

Ian Bradley

Elucidating organic and inorganic nitrogen processes in algal resource recovery: integrating wastewater process design with harmful algal bloom dynamics
 Department: Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering
Award year: 2025

Kaiyi Ji

Large-Scale Multi-Objective Learning: Novel Algorithms and Fundamental Theory
Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Award year: 2025

Luis Herrera

Robust Data Based Control and Estimation for Resilient DC Microgrids
 Department: Electrical Engineering
Award year: 2024

Andrew Olewnik

Recognizing Engineering Formation: Learning Experiences as a Catalyst for Transformation (REFLECT) from Student to Professional Engineer
 Department: Engineering Education
Award year: 2024

Craig Snoeyink

Understanding Dielectrophoretic Molecular Transport
 Department: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Award year: 2024

Kang Sun

Timely Estimation of Nitrogen Oxides Emissions for Improved Monitoring and Simulation of Atmospheric Chemical Processes
Department: Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering
Award year: 2024

Yinyin Ye

Bacterial extracellular vesicles in wastewater systems: Persistence and production to disseminate virulence proteins
 Department: Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering
Award Year: 2024

Zhuoyue Zhao

Speedy and Reliable Approximate Queries in Hybrid Transactional/Analytical Systems
Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Award Year: 2024

Courtney Faber

The Overlooked Barrier – Exploring How Engineering Education Research Teams Negotiate Epistemic Differences
Department: Engineering Education
Award year: 2023

Mingchen Gao

Deploying Transferable Medical Imaging Diagnosis System in Diverse Environments
Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Award year: 2023

Prathima Nalam

Understanding 2D confinement driven phase transitions of non-polar liquids
 Department: Materials Design and Innovation
Award year: 2023

A. Erdem Sariyuce

Temporal Network Analysis: Models, Algorithms, and Applications
Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Award year: 2023

Sangwoo Shin

Phoretic Transport of Membrane-Bound Biological Colloids in Complex Environments
Department: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Award year: 2023

Danial Faghihi

Reliable Superinsulated Building Envelopes via Predictive Multiphysics Modeling
 Department: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Award year: 2022

Kenny Joseph

Promoting Equal Opportunities through Measurement, Simulation, and Education
 Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Award year: 2022

Baishakhi Mazumder

Atomic scale understanding of the doping incorporation and transport properties in ultrawide band gap semiconductors
 Department: Materials Design and Innovation
Award year: 2022

Souma Chowdhury

Automated Design of Decentralized Robust and Explainable Swarm Systems (ADDRESS)
 Department: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Award year: 2021

Huamin Li

Toward sub-60-mV/decade steep transistors using Dirac-source carrier injection and high-mobility 2D monochalcogenides 
 Department: Electrical Engineering
Award year: 2020

Karthik Dantu

Enabling Seamless Vision Sensing in Cloud-Edge Systems
 Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Award year: 2019

Ashlee Ford Versypt

Multiscale Modeling of a Virtual Kidney during the Onset and Progression of Diabetic Kidney Disease
 Department: Chemical and Biological and Engineering
Award year: 2019

Hongxin Hu

Towards Elastic Security with Safe and Efficient Network Security Function Virtualization
 Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Award year: 2019

Peter Qiang Liu

Unconventional Mid-infrared and Terahertz Sources Employing Graphene Plasmonics and Intersubband Transitions in Quantum Wells
 Department: Electrical Engineering
Award year: 2019

Mostafa Nouh

Metamaterials as Elastic Rectifiers: Exploiting the Non-reciprocal Mechanics of Time-Periodic Structures
 Department: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Award year: 2019

Ifeoma Nwogu

A Computational Approach to the Study of Behavior and Social Interactions
Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Award year: 2019

Chi Zhou

3D Printing of Multiscale, Multifunctional Porous Structures by Selectively Freezing Multidimensional Nanomaterials
 Department: Industrial and Systems Engineering
Award year: 2019

Jaroslaw Zola

Scalable Software and Algorithmic Infrastructure for Probabilistic Graphical Modeling
 Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Award year: 2019

Johannes Hachmann

Building an Advanced Cyberinfrastructure for the Data-Driven Design of Chemical Systems and the Exploration of Chemical Space
 Department: Chemical and Biological Engineering
Award year: 2018

Oliver Kennedy

Declarative Uncertainty
 Department:Computer Science and Engineering
Award year: 2018

Lukasz Ziarek

Enabling Adaptable, Object Oriented, Real-time Systems
 Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Award year: 2018

Ning Dai

Impacts of Marine Algal Blooms on Disinfection Byproduct Formation in Seawater Desalination
 Department: Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering
Award year: 2017

Haiqing Lin

SusChEM: Design and Discovery of Polymers with Pendant Rings for Membrane Gas Separations
 Department: Chemical and Biological Engineering
Award year: 2016

Jonathan Lovell

Optically Programmed Membrane Permeabilization
 Department: Biomedical Engineering
Award year: 2016

Miao Yu

A Few Layer Thin, Graphene-Based Membranes: Nanostructure Understanding, Permeation Mechanisms and Separation Applications
 Department: Chemical and Biological Engineering
Award year: 2015

David Salac

Electrohydrodynamics of Vesicles
Department: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Award year: 2013

Thomas Hayes

Innovations in Markov Chains: Metrics, Duality and Liftings
Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Award year: 2012

Mettupalayam Sivaselvan

Robust Computational and Experimental Simulation of Mechanical Systems under Extreme Events
Department: Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering
Award year: 2012

Leslie (Lei) Ying

Compressed Sensing Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Department: Biomedical Engineering
Award year: 2012

Tevfik Kosar

Data-aware Distributed Computing for Enabling Large-scale Collaborative Science
Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Award year: 2011

Sheldon Park

Yeast-based disulfide trapping for engineering selective inhibitors of a protein kinase
Department: Chemical and Biological Engineering
Award year: 2011

Siwei Lyu

A New Statistical Framework for Natural Images with Applications in Vision
Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Award year: 2010

Atri Rudra

Efficient Computation of Approximate Solutions
Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Award year: 2009

Paul DesJardin

High Fidelity Numerical Modeling and Simulation of Fire Suppression
Department: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Award year: 2004

Jeffrey Errington

Connecting Structural Order to Thermodynamic and Kinetic Properties of Aqueous Solutions A Research and Education Program
Department: Chemical and Biological Engineering
Award year: 2003

Albert Titus

Modularized Silicon-based Neuromorphic Visual Processing Systems Implemented in Analog VLSI
Department: Biomedical Engineering
Award year: 2001

Stelios Andreadis

Quantitative Studies of the Rate-Limiting Steps of Retroviral Production and Transduction to Achieve High Levels of Gene Transfer to In Vitro Skin Equivalents
Department: Chemical and Biological Engineering
Award year: 2000

Ann Bisantz

Studies of Decision Making in Complex, Dynamic Environments
Department: Industrial and Systems Engineering
Award year: 2000

Paschalis Alexandridis

Self-Organization of Amphiphilic Block Copolymers for the Preparation of Highly Ordered Materials A Research and Education Program
Department: Chemical and Biological Engineering
Award year: 1999

Kemper Lewis

Development of Design Decision Support Methods for Large-Scale Systems
Department: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Award year: 1999

Hui Meng

Program New Approaches of Holographic Particle Velocimetry for Studying Turbulence
Department: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Award year: 1999

DOD Young Investigator Award Recipients

James Chen

A Multiscale Morphing Continuum Analysis on Energy Cascade of Compressible Turbulence 
 Department: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Agency: U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research
Award year: 2017

Jun Hwan (Brandon) Choi

Adaptable Compressed Jaumann Absorber for Harsh and Dynamic Electromagnetic Environments 
 Department: Electrical Engineering
Agency: U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research
Award year: 2017

Marina Blanton

A Comprehensive Toolset for General-Purpose Private Computing and Outsourcing 
 Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Agency: U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research
Award year: 2013

Matthew Ringuette

Flapping-Wing Propulsion Characterized Using Optimal Vortex Formation 
 Department: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Agency: U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research
Award year: 2010