Meet the Newest Group of Tenured, Tenure-Track Faculty at UT Dallas – University of Texas at Dallas

The University of Texas at Dallas welcomed 25 new tenured and tenure-track faculty members in 2021, with many of them joining the University this fall.

The professors bring an array of expertise in disciplines ranging from visual and performing arts, psychology, and bioengineering to computer science, marketing, biological sciences and mathematics.

We are delighted to welcome this stellar group of professors to UT Dallas. They exemplify the Universitys strong tradition of research, scholarship and teaching excellence and will challenge our students to fulfill their potential, said UT Dallas President Richard C. Benson, the Eugene McDermott Distinguished University Chair of Leadership.

Recognized as a top-tier public research institution by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, UT Dallas is home to a growing roster of esteemed faculty who foster excellence in the classroom, forge community partnerships and attract exceptional students to the University. UT Dallas recently received a National Science Foundation grant to enhance its recruitment and retention of female professors in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

UT Dallas is a top teaching and research destination, where students are learning from some of the best and brightest minds in their respective fields. This talented group is contributing to the rich environment of ideas found throughout our campus, said Dr. Inga Musselman, provost, vice president for academic affairs and the Cecil H. Green Distinguished Chair of Academic Leadership at UT Dallas.

The new tenured and tenure-track faculty members are:

The School of Arts and Humanities offers programs in visual and performing arts, history and philosophy, and literature and languages.

Dr. Laura Kim, assistant professor of visual and performing arts

Education: PhD in intermedia art, writing and performance, University of Colorado Boulder; Master of Fine Arts in new genres, San Francisco Art Institute; Bachelor of Science in art, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Research areas: performance-based multimedia, research in art

Dr. Maurine Ogbaa, assistant professor of literature

Education: PhD in literature, University of Houston; Master of Fine Arts in creative writing, Washington University in St. Louis; Bachelor of Arts in English language and literature, UT Austin

Research areas: contemporary African and African diasporic literature, particularly womens literature; theories of race, post/coloniality, historical materialism, and feminism and gender

Dr. Songyao Ren, assistant professor of philosophy and history of ideas

Education: PhD in philosophy, Duke University; Master of Arts in East Asian literatures and cultures, Columbia University; bachelors degree in journalism, The University of Hong Kong

Research areas: Chinese philosophy, ethics, moral psychology

Dr. Jerillyn Kent, assistant professor of psychology

Education: PhD in psychological and brain sciences, Indiana University Bloomington; Bachelor of Science in psychology and biology, William & Mary

Research areas: motor abnormalities in psychopathology, particularly cerebellar abnormalities in individuals with psychotic disorders; neuromodulation interventions for psychopathology

Dr. Waseem Abbas, assistant professor of systems engineering

Education: PhD and Master of Science in electrical and computer engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology; Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan

Research areas: networked control systems, cyber-physical systems, resilience and robustness in networked systems, distributed optimization, graph machine learning and graph-theoretic methods for multiagent systems

Dr. Shuang (Cynthia) Cui, assistant professor of mechanical engineering

Education: PhD in mechanical engineering, University of California, San Diego;Master of Science in thermal engineering and Bachelor of Science in energy systems and power engineering, Wuhan University

Research areas: advanced thermal energy storage materials and systems, intelligent soft materials and devices, nanoscale heat transfer and energy conversion, grid-interactive efficient buildings

Dr. Gu Eon Kang, assistant professor of bioengineering

Education: PhD in movement science and Master of Science in mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering, University of Michigan; Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering, Korea University

Research areas: biomechanics, mobility research, frailty, diabetic foot, fall prevention, gait, posture, wearable sensors, motion analysis, computational modeling, finite element analysis, physical activity, physiological monitoring

Dr. Kyle McCall, assistant professor of materials science and engineering

Education: PhD in applied physics, Northwestern University; Bachelor of Science in physics and mathematics, University of Notre Dame

Research areas: materials chemistry, semiconductors for optoelectronics applications, halide perovskites, renewable energy conversion, light emission, radiation detection

Dr. Joshua Summers, professor and department head of mechanical engineering

Education: PhD in mechanical engineering, Arizona State University; Master of Science and Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering, University of Missouri

Research areas: collaborative design, knowledge management, design enabler development with the overall objective of improving design through collaboration and computation

Dr. Yu Xiang, assistant professor of computer science

Education: PhD in electrical and computer engineering, University of Michigan; Master of Science and Bachelor of Science in computer science, Fudan University

Research areas: robotics, computer vision

The School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences is home to eight academic programs, including criminology and criminal justice.

Dr. Anne M. Burton, assistant professor of economics

Education: PhD and Master of Arts in economics, Cornell University; Bachelor of Arts in economics and government, Colby College

Research areas: health economics, public economics, economics of crime

Dr. Sivaram Cheruvu, assistant professor of political science

Education: PhD and Master of Arts in political science, Emory University; Master of Science in politics and government in the European Union, The London School of Economics and Political Science; Bachelor of Arts in political science, Rutgers University

Research areas: comparative institutions, judicial decision-making, public law, European Union

Dr. Brenda Gambol, assistant professor of sociology

Education: PhD and Master of Philosophy in sociology, The City University of New York; Bachelor of Arts in ethnic studies and sociology, University of California, San Diego

Research areas: international migration, race and ethnicity, family and marriage

Dr. Jessica Hanson-DeFusco, assistant professor of public policy and political economy

Education: PhD in public policy and international development, University of Pittsburgh; Master of Education in international education policy, Harvard University; Bachelor of Arts in English-ESL secondary education, Colorado State University

Research areas: international development policies related to quality education, public health and gender rights

Dr. Andrew Krajewski, assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice

Education: PhD and Master of Arts in criminology, The Pennsylvania State University; Bachelor of Arts in psychology, University of South Florida

Research areas: verbal and physical aggression, interpersonal conflict, criminal behavior, social networks

Dr. Yeungjeom Lee, assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice

Education: PhD in criminology, law and society, University of Florida

Research areas: developmental life-course criminology, juvenile delinquency, victimization, psychopathy, substance use and crime

Dr. Lauren Pinson, assistant professor of public policy and political economy

Education: PhD, Master of Philosophy and Master of Arts in political science, Yale University; Master of Public Administration and Bachelor of Arts in international affairs, University of Georgia

Research areas: illicit trafficking, foreign aid, border security, migration

Dr. Allison Russell, assistant professor of public and nonprofit management

Education: PhD in social welfare, University of Pennsylvania; Master of Public Administration, University of North Carolina Wilmington; Bachelor of Arts in Latin American and Latino studies, Fordham University

Research areas: volunteerism, nonprofit human resources management, equity and ethics in nonprofits, social innovation and impact

Dr. Anton Sobolev, assistant professor of public policy, political economy, and cybersecurity

Education: PhD in political science and Master of Science in statistics, University of California, Los Angeles; Master of Arts in political economy and Bachelor of Arts in political science, Higher School of Economics University in Russia

Research areas: digital technology and political behavior, cybersecurity, misinformation, mass protest, text analysis

Dr. Samir Mamadehussene, assistant professor of marketing

Education: PhD in economics, Northwestern University; Master of Science in economics and Bachelor of Arts in management, Catholic University of Portugal in Lisbon.

Research areas: pricing and promotional strategies, game theory, consumer search

Dr. Nicholas Dillon, assistant professor of biological sciences

Education: PhD in microbiology and Master of Science in biology, University of Minnesota; Bachelor of Science in biochemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Research areas: microbiology, antibiotic resistance, antibiotic pharmacology, host-pathogen interactions

Dr. Shengwang Du, professor of physics

Education: PhD in physics and Master of Science in electrical engineering, University of Colorado Boulder; Master of Science in physics, Peking University; Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering, Nanjing University

Research areas: quantum optics, quantum networks, quantum information processing, nonlinear optics, laser cooling and trapping, optical neural networks and artificial intelligence, optical microscopy, bioimaging

Dr. Purna Joshi, assistant professor of biological sciences

Education: PhD in stem cell biology, Master of Science in developmental biology and Bachelor of Science in pathobiology, University of Toronto

Research areas: stem cells, breast and ovarian cancer biology, regenerative medicine

Dr. Darshan Sapkota, assistant professor of biological sciences

Education: PhD in biochemistry and developmental neurobiology, The State University of New York at Buffalo; Master of Science in microbiology and Bachelor of Science, Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, Nepal

Research areas: neuroscience, neurological diseases, regulation of mRNA translation, brain and retinal homeostasis, molecular biology

Dr. Yunan Wu, assistant professor of statistics

Education: PhD and Master of Science in statistics, University of Minnesota; Bachelor of Science in mathematics and physics, Tsinghua University in China

Research areas: causal inference in precision medicine, nonparametric and semi-parametric analysis, high-dimensional analysis, Mendelian randomization, machine-learning techniques

Read this article:
Meet the Newest Group of Tenured, Tenure-Track Faculty at UT Dallas - University of Texas at Dallas