The Watson School welcomes 10 new faculty members
Meet the talented, new engineering faculty coming to Binghamton University from universities in China, India, Texas and more.
Kaiyan Yu, assistant professor of mechanical engineering
Kaiyan Yu, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, will teach robotics at Binghamton University in the spring of 2018.
Yu received her bachelor’s degree in intelligent science and technology from Nankai University in China and her doctorate in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Rutgers University.
Her research interests include autonomous robotic systems, dynamic systems and controls and automation science and engineering.
Emrah Akyol, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering
Emrah Akyol, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, specializes in game theory, controls and communications with applications to the security of cyber-physical systems.
From Ankara, Turkey, Akyol received his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Bilkent University in Turkey and his graduate degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of California-Santa Barbara.
He was previously a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Southern California and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
At Binghamton University, Akyol will teach courses on CPS security, probability and signals/systems.
Miao Hu, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering
Miao Hu, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, previously was a research postdoc at Hewett Packard Labs.
Hu, from Hubei, China, received his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering and his graduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh.
Fake “Frank” Lu, assistant professor of biomedical engineering
Fake “Frank” Lu, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering, has served as a neurosurgery instructor at Harvard Medical School.
From Shandong, China, Lu received his undergraduate degree in optoelectronics from Zhejiang University in China. He received his graduate degree in bioengineering from the National University of Singapore.
His research interest is non-linear imaging for neuro-oncology studies.
At Binghamton University, Lu will teach courses on biomedical optics.
Pritam Das, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering
Pritam Das was born in Calcutta, India, and received his PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Western Ontario in 2010.
Prior to joining Binghamton University, Das was an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore.
His present research is focused on developing reliable and high-efficiency, high-power LED drivers for smart commercial lighting, wide-band gap devices-based power converters for E-actuation in more-electric aircraft, electrified transportation, data centers and energy storage in smart grids.
Hui Lu, assistant professor of computer science
Hui Lu, an assistant professor of computer science, received his PhD in computer science from Purdue University in 2017.
Before earning his PhD, Hui worked as a performance engineer at Intel Asia-Pacific Research and Development Center. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
His research interests include virtualization, operating systems, storage and file systems, and cloud computing.
Soongeol Kwon, assistant professor of systems science and industrial engineering
Soongeol Kwon, an assistant professor of systems science and industrial engineering, completed his PhD at Texas A&M University in 2017. His dissertation was titled “Demand-Side Management for Energy-Efficient Data Center Operations with Renewable Energy and Demand Response.”
Kwon will teach operations research at Binghamton University.
His research interests include energy-efficiency, power procurement with renewable energy, smart grids, data centers, building energy management and sustainable manufacturing.
Tracy Hookway, assistant professor of biomedical engineering
Tracy Hookway completed her bachelor’s degree at Lehigh University and her PhD at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Hookway is joining Binghamton University in spring 2018 from McDevitt Laboratory where she worked as a postdoctoral fellow.
Her research interests include 3-D stem cell microenvironments, engineering micro-scale tissue models, and stem cell and developmental biology.
Jia Deng, assistant professor of systems science and industrial engineering
Jia Deng, an assistant professor of systems science and industrial engineering, received his PhD from North Carolina State University.
His research interests include advanced manufacturing, micro/nano-fabrication and biomedical additive manufacturing.
Pu Zhang, assistant professor of mechanical engineering
Pu Zhang will be an assistant professor of mechanical engineering starting in spring 2018. Zhang comes to Binghamton University from the University of Manchester where he worked as a research associate.
Zhang completed his PhD in mechanical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh.
His research interests include mechanics modeling for additive manufacturing, structured materials, composites and metamaterial.
