College of Engineering | New Faculty

Aitor Aguirre

Assistant Professor (August 2018)

Aitor Aguirre focuses on investigating cell plasticity and tissue remodeling in health and disease. His research team is working to understand how the cardiovascular system develops, ages, and responds to injury or disease states. During his post-doctoral research at the Salk Institute, he made seminal contributions to the understanding of the genetic mechanisms of cell dedifferentiation, cardiac regeneration and human development.

EDUCATION: PhD, material science and tissue engineering, Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia, Spain, and the Technical University of Catalonia, Spain; MS, biochemistry and molecular biology; BS, biology, University of the Basque Country, Spain

PREVIOUS APPOINTMENT: Assistant professor, University of California School of Medicine, San Diego

Taeho Kim

Assistant Professor (August 2018)

Taeho Kim focuses on developing nanoscale inorganic materials as novel contrast agents and therapeutics for medical applications. He has harnessed his expertise in solution phase synthesis of inorganic nanoparticle (metal, metal oxide, semiconductor) and subsequent particle engineering to create tools for targeted drug delivery, cell tracking, and molecular therapeutics in various disease states (cancer, stroke, bacterial infection). His recent research lies in the development of nanoparticles for photoacoustic molecular imaging.

EDUCATION: PhD, chemical and biological engineering, Seoul National University, South Korea; visiting researcher, Department of Radiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; BS, chemical engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, South Korea

PREVIOUS APPOINTMENT: Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Department of NanoEngineering, University of California, San Diego

Bryan Smith

Associate Professor (September 2018)

Bryan Smith is working to harness the power of the immune system to diagnose and treat disease by developing and applying selectively-targeted nanomaterials. He blends a combination of nano-chemistry, immunology, computational physics, bioengineering, and imaging technologies such as optical (intravital microscopy and photoacoustics), magnetic (including magnetic particle imaging), and nuclear (positron emission tomography) modalities to develop delivery vehicles that can be used to diagnose and treat diseases such as cancer, atherosclerosis, and neurodegeneration. His goal is to translate these nano-delivery vehicles through in vivo pre-clinical studies and clinical studies with colleagues in the College of Veterinary Medicine and College of Human Medicine, among others.

EDUCATION: Post-doc in radiology/molecular imaging, Stanford University; PhD in biomedical engineering with minors in physics and biomaterials, Ohio State University; BS degrees in physics, mathematics, and biomedical engineering, Tufts University

PREVIOUS APPOINTMENT: Instructor in radiology, Stanford University

Robert Ferrier

Assistant Professor (August 2017)

Robert Ferrier is an expert in polymer science. He is interested in combining his background in polymer physics and chemistry to create new materials that solve engineering challenges in energy, environment, and health.

EDUCATION: PhD, chemical and biomolecular engineering, University of Pennsylvania; MS, materials science and engineering; BS, physics, Drexel University

PREVIOUS APPOINTMENT: Postdoctoral fellow in chemical engineering, University of Texas at Austin

Peter Savolainen

Peter Savolainen, a transportation engineer who examines road user behavior, has joined MSU as an MSU Foundation Professor. His research focuses on the application of statistical and econometric methods to examine the fundamental nature of road user behavior, particularly how traffic safety and operations are influenced by driver behavior in consideration of roadway, traffic, and environmental characteristics.

EDUCATION: PhD and MS, civil engineering, Purdue University; BS, civil engineering, Michigan Technological University

PREVIOUS APPOINTMENT: Associate professor of civil, construction, and environmental engineering, Iowa State University; assistant/associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, Wayne State University

Yunhao Liu

Chairperson designee (August 2018)
MSU Foundation Professor

Yunhao Liu is the new chairperson designee of computer science and engineering and an MSU Foundation Professor. His research interests are in sensor network and pervasive computing, peer-to-peer computing, the Internet of things (IOT), and supply chains.

EDUCATION: PhD and MS, Michigan State University; MA, Beijing Foreign Studies University, China; BS, automation, Tsinghua University, China

PREVIOUS APPOINTMENT: Chang Jiang Chair Professor and Dean of the School of Software, Tsinghua University

Shaunak Bopardikar

Assistant Professor (August 2018)

Shaunak Bopardikar is affiliated with the Connected Autonomous Networked Vehicles for Active Safety (CANVAS) research group. His research interests lie in scalable computation and optimization, cyber-physical security and autonomous motion planning and control. He is a member of the IEEE, has more than 40 refereed journal and conference publications, and has two inventions filed for U.S. patents.

EDUCATION: PhD, mechanical engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara; M.Tech., computer aided design and automation, and B.Tech., mechanical engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India

PREVIOUS APPOINTMENT: Staff research scientist, United Technologies Research Center, East Hartford, Connecticut

Hamidreza Modares

Assistant Professor (August, 2018)

Hamidreza Modares’ research interests include control and security of cyber–physical systems, machine learning in control, distributed control of multi-agent systems, and robotics. He is an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems.

EDUCATION: PhD, electrical engineering, University of Texas at Arlington; MS, electrical engineering, Shahrood University of Technology, Iran; BS, electrical engineering, University of Tehran, Iran

PREVIOUS APPOINTMENT: Assistant professor of electrical engineering, Missouri University of Science and Technology

Wei-Che Tai

Assistant Professor (August 2018)

Wei-Che Tai is part of MSU’s Dynamics and Energy Harvesting Laboratory. His research interests focus on dynamics and vibration, smart structures, and energy harvesting. Current research activities include rotor dynamics, nonlinear dynamics and vibration, and nonlinear energy harvesting. His applications work includes developing energy harvesters for intelligent tires, energy regenerative vehicle suspensions, and self-powered active vibration control for rotor machinery.

EDUCATION: PhD and MS, mechanical engineering, University of Washington; BS, mechanical engineering, National Taiwan University in Taiwan

PREVIOUS APPOINTMENT: Postdoctoral research associate, Center for Energy Harvesting Materials and Systems, Virginia Tech; postdoctoral research associate in mechanical engineering, University of Washington