Twelve new faculty members are joining the UCF Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science for the 2023-2024 academic year. This highly-qualified group of researchers and educators brings a wide range of expertise in their respective fields, from security and artificial intelligence in VLSI technology to micro- and nanoscale devices and materials for extreme environments, to enrich the quality of research and education in the department.
This is the largest group of incoming faculty to the department over the last several years. The hiring of this cohort of faculty is part of a larger vision of growing the department to better serve stakeholders, namely students and industrial partners, while elevating the reputation of the department’s programs.
“I am ecstatic about each member of this cohort joining our ECE family, and extremely optimistic about the future of ECE with this significant infusion of talent,” says department chair Reza Abdolvand, Ph.D.
Meet the new ECE faculty
Mike Borowczak, Ph.D., an associate professor, joins the department from The University of Wyoming. He received his doctorate in computer science and engineering from University of Cincinnati in 2013. His research interests include design automation for hardware security and resistance; secure IoT systems; and the development of a sustainable semiconductor workforce pipeline. Borowczak is the director of the UCF Design of Resilient Architectures for Computing (DRACO) Lab.
Sonali Das, Ph.D., has been with UCF over the last few years as a postdoctoral associate and adjunct professor, and now joins the ECE department as a lecturer. She received her doctorate in engineering from Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, in 2017. Her research interests include device electronics, solar cells and photo transistors, emerging micro/nano fabrication technologies and optoelectronic synaptic and neuromorphic devices.
Shahana Ibrahim, Ph.D., an assistant professor, was a research assistant at Oregon State University and earned her Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from there before coming to UCF. Her research focus is designing provable and efficient methods for various data-driven tasks in machine learning and artificial intelligence. She also works in the fields of signal processing and optimization with applications of various structured factorization tools and related algorithm design.
Hadi Mardani Kamali, Ph.D. comes to the department from the University of Florida, where he was a research assistant professor. Dr. Kamali will be coming on board as an assistant professor in Spring 2023. He earned his doctorate in computer engineering from George Mason University in 2021. His research interests include hardware security and trust, VLSI design and testability, IoT security, applied machine learning and cybersecurity.
Jaesung Lee, Ph.D., joins the department as an assistant professor from the University of Texas at El Paso. He earned his doctorate in electrical engineering from Case Western Reserve University in 2017. His research interests include nanoscale solid-state electronic devices, micro/nanoelectromechanical systems and quantum materials for solid-state qubits and quantum acoustics.
Piotr Kulik, Ph.D., an assistant professor, joins the department from Metamagnetics, Inc., where he served as lead of the deep tech and algorithms team. He received a doctorate in electrical engineering from Northeastern University in 2020. Kulik’s research interests include nanofabrication of thin-film materials, multiphysics devices, and microsystems for sensing and communication.
M. Sazadur Rahman, Ph.D., joins the department as an assistant professor and member of the UCF Cyber Security and Privacy Cluster. He comes to UCF from Intel, where he served as a security assurance architecture engineer. Rahman earned his doctorate in electrical, electronics and communications engineering from the University of Florida in 2022. His research interests include electronic design automation, machine learning, secure architecture and supply chain security.
Mohsen Rakhshan, Ph.D., joins the department as an assistant professor from Johns Hopkins Medical School, where he was a Biomedical Engineering Distinguished Fellow. He earned his doctorate in cognitive neuroscience from Dartmouth College in 2022. Rakshan is also a contributing researcher of the UCF Disability, Aging and Technology Cluster. His research interests include brain-machine interfaces, neural prostheses, computation neuroscience, control theory and robotics.
Yue Wang, Ph.D., served as a research assistant at State University of New York Buffalo and received his doctorate in electrical engineering from there in 2023. He joins the department as an assistant professor. Wang’s research interests include reinforcement learning, machine learning, optimization and computer vision. He is a member of the UCF Artificial Intelligence Initiative.
Di Wu, Ph.D., assistant professor, comes to the department from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he received his doctorate in electrical and computer engineering this year. Wu’s research interests include computer architecture, heterogenous systems, domain-specific acceleration and emerging computing. He is the director of the UNARY Lab.
Xin Xin, Ph.D., joins the department as an assistant professor from the University of Pittsburgh, where he just received his doctorate in electrical and computer engineering. His research interests include computer architecture, memory hierarchy, domain-specific architecture and reliable hardware/software systems.
Enxia Zhang, Ph.D., joins the department as an assistant professor from Vanderbilt University. She received her doctorate in microelectronics and solid state electronics from Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2006. Zhang’s research interests include reliability and radiation response in advanced microelectric devices, compound semiconductors, photonic devices and radiation response of emerging materials and devices for space applications.