Spectra Newsletter

This year, reflecting its status as one of the fastest-growing engineering and computer science programs in the country, CECS welcomed eight new assitant professors to its faculty. Hailing from all over the world and representing every department, they come from different backgrounds and have diverse areas of expertise, but they share a passion for teaching, a appreciation of diversity, dedication to students, commitment to collaboration and great enthusiasm for CSUN and the College of Engineering and Computer Science. (What is more, over half are women!)

Anwar Alroomi

Assistant Professor
Construction Management

Anwar Alroomi had always had a passion for building, so it made perfect sense that she wanted to study civil engineering in college. Initially, when she enrolled in Kuwait University, she planned to focus on design. But when she got into the field, she found construction management more appealing, so she changed her emphasis. After earning her bachelor’s degree, she went on to pursue a master’s in civil and environmental engineering; at the same time, she got a taste of industry, working for one of the largest construction management companies in Kuwait. For her Ph.D., she came to the U.S., to Oklahoma State University–Stillwater, and remained there for another year as an adjunct professor after earning her doctorate.

Alroomi’s research focuses on cost estimating—not just the profession of cost estimating but the behavior and skills that are required of a good cost estimator.

“Some of the knowledge you can teach in school, but the major part people get from work experience,” she says. “How can senior engineers pass their knowledge on to younger generations of cost estimators? It touches on human resources, knowledge management, training, etc. That’s the beauty of engineering. You can borrow methods, methodologies and knowledge from any field and apply them.”

At CSUN, Alroomi will be teaching construction drawing and planning and scheduling of construction projects. In her classroom she will try to minimize the gap between industry needs and what is taught in textbooks. She routinely encourages her students to read publications in the field, for example, because she wants them to acquire the knowledge they need to get a better job and to hang onto it once they are hired.

She is especially excited to be at CSUN because it is one of the largest campuses in terms of enrollment, and it’s growing. She is looking forward to interacting with the diversity of students at the university and to working with her colleagues.

“I liked the people in the department the first time we met,” she says. “I can see them working as a very close family, and I want to be part of this family. I like the place, and I’m going to learn a lot from the people here.”

Tzong-Ying Hao

Assistant Professor
Civil Engineering

It isn’t every day that California’s susceptibility to earthquakes actually attracts people to the Golden State. But for Tzong-Ying Hao, assistant professor of civil engineering, its seismic activity was definitely a selling point. Hao, who hails from Taiwan, had already earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering when she decided to gain more experience by pursuing her Ph.D. outside the country. Of the handful of doctoral programs she applied to, USC’s was especially attractive because the Southern California climate is similar to Taiwan’s, and both are located in seismic zones.

At USC, Hao focused her research on earthquake engineering, recording information on buildings to analyze their performance and test models to determine whether building codes actually enable the structures to withstand earthquakes. After earning her doctorate, she continued on at USC as a postdoc. But she had also discovered that she loved teaching and decided to become an educator, teaching part time at CSUN and Cal Poly Pomona while raising a family.

Hao views her recent appointment as an assistant professor of civil engineering in the College of Engineering and Computer Science as unique opportunity to extend her research to seismic incidents and to form a research group made up of civil engineering faculty and students who will focus on earthquake recording and structural health monitoring.

“It is important to discover innovative solutions needed to protect life and property from the hazards of earthquakes,” she says, “but the research in earthquake engineering must be deeply embedded in undergraduate study.”

Wen-Chin Hsu

Assistant Professor
Computer Science

Wen-Chin Hsu has teaching in her blood. Inspired by her mother, an elementary school teacher in Taiwan, and her sister, a university professor, she served as a math tutor during high school and realized early on that she wanted to make teaching her career.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in electrical and computer engineering in Taiwan, she followed in the footsteps of her siblings, who all came to the United States to earn their master’s degrees. In her case, she enrolled at CSUN, and after earning her degree, she went on to the University of Florida in Gainesville, where she received her doctorate in 2013. But Hsu always wanted to return to CSUN and California. “I love CSUN— the professors, students and environment,” she says. “The professors are very openminded, friendly and helpful.”

Her new position as an assistant professor of computer science at her alma mater has made that homecoming possible. In addition to enabling her to realize her dream to become a teacher, joining the CECS faculty will also allow her to continue her research. Most recently, she has been using data mining and machine learning techniques with large gene expression datasets to try to identify genes that are strongly associated with Alzheimer’s disease and various kinds of cancer. She also has developed algorithms and models for network design, graph algorithms, features extraction and machine learning and is looking forward to collaborating with colleagues with expertise in science, engineering, medicine, health and biology.

When she’s not teaching or conducting research, she enjoys taking advantage of LA’s cultural life, from viewing independent films to attending auto shows, from relaxing to classical music, R&B, pop and jazz to visiting museums.

Ruting Jia

Assistant Professor
Electrical and Computer Engineering

When Ruting Jia was very young, a cousin studying at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics brought her a model airplane. That gift put the university on her radar and made her want to attend it when she got older. She went on to enroll there, majoring in electrical engineering and completing a “submajor” in applied mathematics.

“Both of my parents graduated from university and majored in chemistry,” she says.” But when I chose my major, I wanted to study electrical engineering because it was more fun than chemistry and gave me a lot of choices.”

After earning her bachelor’s degree, Jia came to the United States for graduate school, earning her master’s and Ph.D. at the University of Texas, San Antonio, in 2008 and 2012, respectively. She then did postdoctoral work for a year at CPS Energy Group. At the same time, she taught at University of the Incarnate Word, the largest Catholic and fourth largest private university in Texas. Following her postdoctoral appointment, she became a visiting assistant professor at McNeese State University in Louisiana. Jia’s accomplishments with optimal control for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) helped McNeese get funding from the Louisiana Space Consortium, and she is coprincipal investigator on the grant.

As the newest assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at CECS, Jia will teach courses in the fundamentals of control systems, nonlinear control systems and mathematical models in electrical engineering. She also plans to continue her research on nonlinear control theory, with applications in renewable energy and biomedical engineering.

“Everything in the world is nonlinear,” she explains, “but the majority of control techniques being widely used in industries now are linear. Sometimes when we have enough background knowledge, linear controllers that are tailored to the specific situation at hand work fine. But in most cases, since the fundamental stuff is nonlinear and dynamic with unknown disturbances, we have to use advanced control techniques to solve those problems.”

Jia is delighted to be at CSUN because of its academic quality and because CECS is growing rapidly. She is also looking forward to the advantages of its Southern California’s location, which will enable her to indulge her love of swimming, skiing and working out at the gym.

Bingbing Li

Assistant Professor
Manufacturing Systems Engineering

As the son of a mechanical engineer, Bingbing Li, who grew up in Henan province in China, was very interested in the automotive industry, which inspired him to major in mechanical engineering in college. Although he had an opportunity to work for one of the Chinese car companies after graduation, his father suggested that he attend graduate school and then decide about a career. He followed his father’s advice, earning a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. In the process he discovered that he preferred academia to industry.

His dream, however, was to come to the United States for his Ph.D. and then find a teaching position. “I really like teaching and working with students so we can collaborate on research and senior design projects,” he says.

He enrolled in Texas Tech for his doctorate, pursuing research in sustainable manufacturing and completing his degree in industrial engineering in May 2012. After his Ph.D., Li took a postdoctoral appointment at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, then returned to Texas Tech as an instructor.

He was thrilled when he received the offer to join CSUN as an assistant professor of manufacturing systems engineering, describing it as “a really awesome milestone in my life.” He not only is impressed by the location and the California weather, which will support his fondness for swimming, hiking and fishing, but by the department, its programs and the opportunities to collaborate with industry. His primary research field is sustainable manufacturing, and recently he has begun branching out into additive manufacturing, which mobilizes new 3D technologies to manufacture parts layer by layer rather than by removing materials as traditional milling machines do. He is looking forward to pursuing new collaborations in these fields and appreciates the connections that the college will help him foster.

“CSUN is a great university with great program in manufacturing systems engineering and great opportunities to work with industry and partnerships,” he says. “And I will work hard to do that.”

Sami Maalouf

Assistant Professor
Civil Engineering

For many years, Sami Maalouf straddled the line between industry and academia. First, while working as a civil engineer, he taught part time at Cal State Los Angeles, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Later, he did the same at CSUN.

That experience convinced him he wanted to teach, so he decided to return to graduate school for a Ph.D., completing his doctorate at UCLA in 2014. When CSUN’s Department of Civil Engineering and Construction Management had some faculty openings, he applied for a position and was hired full time.

“Teaching is the main attraction that got me here,” he says, noting that civil engineering students will likely encounter him both at the beginning and the culmination of their undergraduate education, as he will be teaching an introduction course to civil engineering, as well as the senior design project.

“However,” he adds, “I also enjoy research. During my master’s studies, I became infatuated with water and completed my degree by writing my thesis on contaminants transport in potable water networks. After that I developed a complete affinity with open water bodies like lakes and coastal waters.”

Maalouf’s arrival at CSUN as a full-time faculty member couldn’t be more timely, with California in the throes of the worst drought in its history. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on the planning and design of desalination plants’ effluent systems, particularly focusing on ways to mitigate associated pollutants. He is already putting together a center for studying water and the environment at CSUN as a vehicle for bringing grants to the college and to discuss policy and environmental fairness to communities and coastal water bodies.

“I love to cross disciplines,” he says.

Part of that impetus will include helping students learn how to communicate more effectively, especially about what engineers do.

“Most people I talk with don’t even know what civil engineering is,” he says, “and I want to change that if I can.”

Vidya Nandikolla

Assistant Professor
Mechanical Engineering

When Vidya Nandikolla was growing up in India, she admired her older brother, who was in engineering school. So she decided that she too would become an engineer. Her parents, however, had other ideas; they wanted her to go into medicine because she was strong in biology and insisted that she take the college entrance exams in both medicine and engineering to keep her options open. She ultimately prevailed and chose engineering. In a way, however, she went on to fulfill both dreams, because she has drawn on her interest in biology to become a specialist in biomedical engineering.

Nandikolla came to bioengineering in a roundabout way, earning a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in India, then graduate degrees from Idaho State University, first a master’s in electrical engineering and then a Ph.D. in engineering and applied sciences, which is when she refined her focus on biomedical engineering.

Her research focuses primarily on system design of medical devices. She has designed an active foot bed for diabetics and developed optimization algorithms for an assistive device for patients whose hearts need help with left ventricular pumping.

Whatever she’s researching she introduces into her classroom so her students connect their learning with her research.

“I don’t believe in passive learning,” she says. “I bring it back into the classroom as an active part of my instruction.”

At CSUN, as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, Nandikolla will be teaching mechatronics and control systems and hopes to grow the master’s program in system dynamics and controls. She is excited because she feels the college is a good match for her interests and ambitions. She is also impressed with how fast CECS has been growing and with what faculty are doing in the college.

“I never felt a need to change my profession,” she says. “I’ve enjoyed every bit of it.”

Vahab Pournaghshband

Assistant Professor
Computer Science

Vahab Pournaghshband, assistant professor of computer science, developed his interest in technology from an early age. Although born in New York, Pournaghshband grew up in Iran, where his parents ran a computer institute. The institute was his hangout after school and during summers, exposing him to computers from a very early age. By the time he was 12, he had become captivated by computer science—and his interest in the field has never wavered since.

“It has always been in my blood,” he says, “and I was lucky to grow up in the right environment.”

Pournaghshband returned to the United States after completing his secondary education and enrolled in L.A. Valley College, where he served as a TA and discovered that he also loved teaching. He went on to earn his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at UC Berkeley in 2006 and 2008, respectively, then returned to Southern California for his doctoral work, receiving his Ph.D. from UCLA in 2014. Along the way, he also worked in industry for three years, at Symantec and Cisco, and indulged his love of travel by visiting more than 20 countries.

As much as he enjoyed what he learned in industry, however, Pournaghshband didn’t find the challenge he was looking for. He was drawn to academia because the combination of teaching and research meant there were many more opportunities to learn new things, and the mix at CSUN fit the bill perfectly.

His specialty is network security, an interest that dates back to his youth, and he plans to incorporate it into the two introductory programming classes he will be teaching in his first year at CSUN. There is a compelling need for programmers who know security, he notes, because many security breaches that take place stem from programmers who are not securityconscious. His plan is to help his introductory students think about security from the outset so that it becomes a habit—an approach he feels is a particularly effective way of teaching computer security. And in the long run, it’s one that promises to benefit everyone who uses a computer.