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Faculty & research

New faculty 2021

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Amirhossein Taghvaei
Assistant Professor, William E. Boeing Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics

Research focus:

Control theory, nonlinear filtering, optimal transportation, stochastic thermodynamics

 

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Erica Fuhrmeister
Assistant Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering

Research focus:

Environmental microbiology, community health, pathogen transmission, clean and safe sanitation 

 

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Jorge Marchand
Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering

Research focus:

Biochemistry, chemical and synthetic biology, genetic engineering, natural product engineering and product discovery

 

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Shachi Mittal
Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering

Research focus:

Artificial intelligence, bioimaging, breast cancer, digital pathology, diversity in cancer, spatial genomics

 

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Leilani Battle
Assistant Professor, Paul G. Allen School for Computer Science & Engineering

Research focus:

Data management, human-computer interaction

 

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Vikram Iyer
Assistant Professor, Paul G. Allen School for Computer Science & Engineering

Research focus:

Bio-inspired systems, wireless technologies

 

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Simon Peter
Assistant Professor, Paul G. Allen School for Computer Science & Engineering

Research focus:

Cloud computing, networking, systems

 

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Yulia Tsvetkov
Assistant Professor, Paul G. Allen School for Computer Science & Engineering

Research focus:

Natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, computational social science, computational ethics

 

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Ludwig Schmidt
Assistant Professor, Paul G. Allen School for Computer Science & Engineering

Research focus:

Datasets, machine learning, reliable methods

 

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Sara Mouradian
Assistant Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering

Research focus:

Trapped-ion systems, optical fields, photonics, quantum computing

 

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Sayamindu Dasgupta
Assistant Professor, Human Centered Design & Engineering

Research focus:

Constructionism, data literacy, digital media and learning, human-computer interaction

 

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Krithika Manohar
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering

Research focus:

Data-driven modeling and control, physics-informed machine learning, data-driven manufacturing, optimal sensor and actuator placement

 

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Di Xiao
Professor, Materials Science & Engineering

Research focus:

Condensed matter physics, quantum computing

 

New Research Assistant Professors

 

Jeffrey Nivala

Jeffrey Nivala
Paul G. Allen School for Computer Science & Engineering

Research focus:

Synthetic biology, molecular sensing, DNA and molecular computing, biophysics, nanopore technology

Education
Ph.D. Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2014
B.S. Bioengineering, University of Washington, 2010

Jeff Nivala joined the Allen School after previously serving as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, and most recently, a research scientist in CSE exploring biotechnological innovations for molecular computing. In his new role, he will develop nanoscale sensing technologies and hybrid computer systems that integrate molecular data storage and processing with electronics.

New Assistant Teaching Professors

 

Ben Rutz

Ben Rutz
John C. Berg Endowed Teaching Professor in Interfacial and Colloid Science, Chemical Engineering

Research focus:

Structural thermoset and thermoplastic composite materials, composites manufacturing, polymers, nano and interfacial science

Education
Ph.D. Chemical Engineering, University of Washington, 2014
B.S. Chemical Engineering, University of Rochester, 2008

Ben joins the Department of Chemical Engineering having previously served as a senior research scientist at Toray Composite Materials and a departmental affiliate associate professor. At Toray, he led a team developing next generation composites for use in high performance aerospace applications. In his new role, he plans to continue exploring open-ended scientific problems related to air and space travel, finding solutions with novel materials.

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Eli Patten
Mechanical Engineering

Teaching focus:

Mechanical engineering design and senior design capstone

Education
Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, 2012
M.S. Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, 2008
B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Washington State University, 2006

Eli Patten joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering last fall after working as a staff engineer with Makani Technologies, a clean energy startup that developed 600-kW, 26-meter-wingspan airborne wind turbines called energy kites. Patten led the design and deployment of the energy kite’s 400 meter long electromechanical tether and analyzed flight and simulation data to work toward demonstrating economically viable offshore wind energy.