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CECS Hires Additional 11 Faculty for Spring Semester

The new faculty are part of a larger hiring initiative for the college.
By: Marisa Ramiccio | January 14, 2025

The UCF College of Engineering and Computer Science has witnessed unprecedented faculty growth over the past few years and the spring 2025 semester is no exception.

Eleven additional faculty members, including one with a joint appointment, will join the college this semester, after 17 new hires in fall 2024. The increase in faculty is part of an initiative to hire 100 new faculty over three years. Close to 30 new faculty joined the college during the previous academic year and 18 new positions have already been posted for the 2025-26 academic year.

“We are thrilled to welcome 28 new faculty members to our college plus another 36 next year. Their diverse expertise and innovative approaches will undoubtedly drive our institution forward, fostering a vibrant academic environment,” says Michael Georgiopoulos, the dean of CECS. “These additions will enhance our research capabilities, enrich our curriculum, and inspire our students to reach new heights. Together, we are committed to pushing the boundaries of knowledge and making significant contributions to our fields.”

Meet the new faculty who are joining the college this semester:

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Ral Bielawski
Assistant Professor

Bielawski leverages high-performance computing to explore next generation propulsion systems for high-speed vehicles. He particularly focuses on the use of detonations to achieve hypersonic propulsions and understanding multiphase detonations. He earned his doctoral degree from the University of Michigan and his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.

Rohit Deshmukh
Assistant Professor

Deshmukh comes to UCF from Florida Atlantic University, where he worked as an assistant professor. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in 2010. After a short stint in industry, he joined The Ohio State University to pursue doctoral studies in aerospace engineering. Subsequently, he continued his research in computational aerospace sciences at Ohio State, first as a postdoctoral scholar and then as a research scientist.

Haonan Ling
Assistant Professor

Ling recently earned his doctoral degree in mechanical engineering from the University of California in Los Angeles. He also earned his bachelor’s degree from UCLA in 2017. His research focuses include newly emergent material systems, the interactions of light and matter at the nanoscale, and device research and engineering.

Sihong Yan
Assistant Professor

Yan earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in aerospace engineering from Pennsylvania State University, where he previously worked as a postdoctoral scholar for the Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence (VLRCOE) program. He was also a postdoctoral scholar with the Georgia Institute of Technology’s VLRCOE program. His research focuses on multiphase and thermal fluids problems related to hazardous atmospheric conditions including icing clouds, freezing drizzles and hailstones. He also conducts research on advanced vertical lift vehicles, with a particular focus on utilizing advanced experimental methods to study rotor aerodynamics and fluid-structure interactions.

Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Chase Brown
Assistant Professor

Brown’s goal is to develop tools across the fields of nanomaterials, photonics, bioinformatics, machine learning and artificial intelligence to facilitate the automation of scientific discovery. His research focuses on the optoelectronic and physicochemical properties of nanomaterials, the design of stimuli-responsive nanoparticles for biofuel catalysis, as well as the application of algebraic topology to genomic meta-analyses and literature-based discovery. Brown earned his doctoral degree in neuroscience and a master’s degree in chemical and biological materials engineering from the University of Oklahoma. He also has extensive industrial experience managing carbon nanotube production, separation and characterization operations as the lead research and development engineer at SouthWest Nanotechnologies.

Yuxun Ren
Assistant Professor

Ren obtained his doctoral degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2019. Since then, he has completed postdoctoral appointments at Vanderbilt University, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Maryland, College Park. Over this past year, he worked as a senior scientist in the battery industry.

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Paulo Eduardo de Faria Jr.
Assistant Professor

De Faria has a joint appointment with the Department of Physics as his research covers theoretical condensed matter physics with an overlap in materials science. He earned his doctoral degree, master’s degree and bachelor’s degree in computational physics from the University of Sao Paulo. Prior to joining UCF, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow for the University of Regensburg in Germany.

Siyuan Niu
Assistant Professor

Niu joins the ECE department from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship. Her research focuses on quantum computing, specifically on quantum compilation, quantum error mitigation and correction, quantum algorithm optimization, the and benchmarking and characterization of quantum systems. Her research has been published in leading journals and conferences in the field of quantum computing, including Quantum, Quantum Science and Technology, and IEEE Transactions on Quantum Engineering. She earned her doctoral degree from the University of Montpellier in France, her master’s degree from Polytech Nice Sophia in France and her bachelor’s degree from Xidian University in China.

Department of Computer Science

Awrad Mohammed Ali
Lecturer

For Ali ‘14MS ‘19PhD, joining UCF is a homecoming for the alum. She earned her doctoral and master’s degrees from computer science and computer engineering, respectively, from UCF. Her passion for academia brought her back to her alma mater, where she says she’s committed to fostering innovation and inspiring the next generation of computer scientists through teaching and mentoring. After graduation, she worked as a data scientist, applying her expertise to solve complex problems in real-world settings. Her research focuses on machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Edward Amoruso
Lecturer

Amoruso has spent much of his career in the industry, working with Fortune 500 companies to enhance their information technology infrastructure. He earned his doctoral degree in computer engineering from UCF. His research focuses on cyber artificial intelligence, in-depth malware analysis and comprehensive digital forensics.

Yancy Paredes
Lecturer

Paredes earned his doctoral degree in computer science from Arizona State University, where he developed a technology-driven framework designed to introduce innovative learning activities in the classroom. His research focuses on the intersection of educational assessments, adaptive learning systems and learning analytics, with an emphasis 0on enhancing computer science education through artificial intelligence. His work has resulted in multiple interdisciplinary publications in collaboration with research labs dedicated to advancing the science of learning.