(Editor’s Note: Professors from the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, the Naveen Jindal School of Management and the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics will be featured in a future edition of News Center.)
The University of Texas at Dallas welcomed one of its largest groups of new tenured and tenure-track faculty members with 43 of them joining the University this year, including many who started this fall.
The professors bring an array of expertise in disciplines ranging from art history and game design, to psychology and neuroscience, to computer science and mechanical engineering.
This year’s group includes:
School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology
Dr. Ali Asgar Alibhai, assistant professor of art history
Education: PhD in Arabic and Islamic studies, Harvard University; Master of Arts in medieval studies, Southern Methodist University; Bachelor of Arts in Arabic and Islamic studies, Aljamea-tus-Saifiyah, Surat, India
Research areas: art; architecture and material culture of the Islamic world
Jeff Price, associate professor of game development
Education: Master of Fine Arts in multimedia, animation and graphic design, Virginia Commonwealth University; Bachelor of Fine Arts in graphic design, University of Oklahoma
Research areas: game design; photogrammetry; virtual and augmented reality
Dr. Jonathan Tsou, professor of philosophy, Marvin and Kathleen Stone Distinguished Professor of Humanities in Medicine and Science
Education: PhD in conceptual and historical studies of science, University of Chicago; Master of Arts in philosophy, University of Western Ontario; Bachelor of Arts in philosophy, Simon Fraser University in British Columbia
Research areas: philosophy of science, philosophy of psychiatry, philosophy of mind/cognitive science, history of 20th-century philosophy of science
Dr. Mai Wang, assistant professor of literature
Education: PhD and Master of Arts in English, Stanford University; Master of Fine Arts in creative writing, Boston University; Bachelor of Arts in English, Yale University
Research areas: transnational diasporic literary studies
School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Dr. Anila D’Mello, assistant professor of psychology at UT Dallas and assistant professor of psychiatry and a Jon Heighten Scholar in Autism Research in the Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute at UT Southwestern Medical Center
Education: PhD in behavior, cognition and neuroscience, American University; Bachelor of Arts in psychology and government, Georgetown University
Research areas: cognitive neuroscience of language and social cognition across development and in disorders; role of cerebro-cerebellar circuits in language, cognition and autism spectrum disorder; neuroimaging of language and cognition across typical and atypical neurodevelopment
Dr. Kelly Jahn, assistant professor of speech, language, and hearing
Education: PhD in speech and hearing sciences, University of Washington; AuD, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine; Bachelor of Science in psychology and Bachelor of Arts in communication sciences, University of Connecticut
Research areas: neural signatures of auditory hypersensitivity and emotional sound processing across the lifespan; development of evidence-based clinical protocols, diagnostic tools and personalized treatments for hearing loss and hyperacusis; cochlear implants; auditory electrophysiology
Dr. Millie Rincón-Cortés, assistant professor of neuroscience
Education: PhD in neuroscience and physiology, New York University; Bachelor of Science in biology, University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus
Research areas: normative and stress-induced plasticity of reward and mesolimbic dopamine function, emphasis on early development and the postpartum period
Dr. Pumpki Lei Su, assistant professor of speech, language, and hearing
Education: PhD in hearing and speech sciences and Master of Science in interdisciplinary study in neurodevelopmental disabilities, Vanderbilt University; Bachelor of Science, communication sciences and disorders and linguistics, Northwestern University
Research areas: language development in children with autism spectrum disorder and in bilingual children; parent-child interaction; word learning; language assessment for culturally and linguistically diverse children; Mandarin development; eye-tracking
Dr. Alva Tang, assistant professor of psychology
Education: PhD in psychology, neuroscience and behaviour, McMaster University in Ontario; Bachelor of Science in psychology, University of Toronto
Research areas: developmental changes in social-emotional development; individual differences and social-contextual factors; mental and physical health
Dr. Stacie Warren, associate professor of psychology
Education: PhD in clinical psychology and Master of Arts in psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Bachelor of Arts in psychology, California State University Long Beach
Research areas: clinical psychology, investigating individual differences in developmental pathways to psychopathology across the lifespan in hopes of reducing its prevalence and impact; executive function, emotion regulation, cognitive and affective neuroscience; cognitive training; noninvasive systems neuroscience
Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science
Dr. Polimyr Caesar Dave P. Dingal, assistant professor of bioengineering
Education: PhD in chemical and biomolecular engineering, University of Pennsylvania; Bachelor of Engineering in chemical and biomolecular engineering, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore
Research areas: systems biology, synthetic biology, developmental biology
Dr. Xinya Du, assistant professor of computer science
Education: PhD in computer science, Cornell University; Bachelor of Engineering in computer science and engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Research areas: natural language processing, computational linguistics, machine learning, deep learning
Dr. Mona Ghassemi, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering
Education: PhD and Master of Science in electrical engineering, University of Tehran; Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering, Shahed University in Iran
Research areas: transportation electrification; clean energy; electrical insulation materials and systems; high voltage/field engineering and technology; power systems; plasma science
Dr. Yunhui Guo, assistant professor of computer science
Education: PhD in computer science, University of California, San Diego; Master of Science in computer science, Zhejiang University, China; Bachelor of Engineering in communication engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
Research areas: machine learning, computer vision
Dr. Ifana Mahbub, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering
Education: PhD in electrical engineering, University of Tennessee in Knoxville; Bachelor of Science in electrical and electronic engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology
Research areas: radiofrequency and microwave integrated circuits and interfaces for wireless power and data telemetry applications
Dr. Kristin Miller, associate professor of bioengineering and mechanical engineering
Education: PhD in bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania; Bachelor of Science in biomedical engineering, Texas A&M University
Research areas: biomechanics; mechanobiology; reproductive health, growth and remodeling; tissue engineering and regenerative medicine
Dr. Hui Ouyang, assistant professor of mechanical engineering
Education: PhD in mechanical engineering, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities; Master of Science in mechanical engineering, The University of Akron; Bachelor of Science in energy and power engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University in China
Research areas: aerosol science and technology; aerosol transport in the lung; bioaerosol control
Dr. Berrak Sisman, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering
Education: PhD in electrical and computer engineering, National University of Singapore; Master of Science in electronics engineering and Bachelor of Science in electrical and electronics engineering and in computer science and engineering, FMV Işık University in Istanbul
Research areas: artificial intelligence; machine learning; speech synthesis and emotion
Dr. Yapeng Tian, assistant professor of computer science
Education: PhD in computer science, University of Rochester; Master of Science in electronic engineering, Tsinghua University in Beijing; Bachelor of Science in electronic engineering, Xidian University in China
Research areas: computer vision, computer audition, multimodal learning
Dr. Cormac Toher, assistant professor of materials science and engineering in the Jonsson School and of chemistry and biochemistry in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
Education: PhD in physics and Bachelor of Arts in theoretical physics, Trinity College Dublin
Research areas: computational materials design, materials thermodynamics, disordered materials, energy materials, electronic materials
Dr. Yue Zhou, assistant professor of mechanical engineering
Education: PhD in electrical engineering, The Pennsylvania State University; Master of Science and Bachelor of Science in physics, Nanjing University in China
Research areas: energy storage; energy conversion; advanced manufacturing; electronic materials and devices