[10/30/2009]    College welcomes its newest faculty members

University Park, Pa. — The College of Engineering welcomed eight new faculty members to Penn State this fall.

Swagata Banerjee, assistant professor of civil engineering; George Engelmayr, assistant professor of bioengineering; Enrique Gomez, assistant professor of chemical engineering; Paul Griffin, Peter and Angela Dal Pezzo Department Head Chair of industrial and manufacturing engineering; Vishal Monga, assistant professor of electrical engineering; Farshad Rajabipour, assistant professor of civil engineering; Stephen Treado, associate professor of architectural engineering; and Donghai Wang, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, joined the College this semester.

Banjeree received her bachelor of engineering from Bengal Engineering and Science University in Howrah, India; her master's of technology from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, India; and her Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of California, Irvine. Her current research focuses on the seismic vulnerability assessment of bridges and its application in the performance evaluation of highway transportation networks. Her continuing research will assess the risk and reliability of various civil infrastructure systems under natural hazards.

Engelmayr earned his B.S. in chemical engineering from Penn State, his master's of biotechnology degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his Ph.D. in bioengineering from the University of Pittsburgh. He was an engineer and production supervisor at Merck & Co. Engelmayr was also a postdoctoral fellow in the Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Division of Health Sciences and Technology at MIT. His current research focuses on tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, with a particular emphasis on cardiac repair applications, including vessels, valves and myocardium.

Gomez received his B.S. from the University of Florida and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, both in chemical engineering. His research focuses on understanding how structures at various length scales affect macroscopic properties of soft condensed matter. Gomez's current work is centered on developing structure-function relationships encompassing morphology of the active layer and device performance of polymer solar cells.

Griffin earned his B.A. in chemistry and B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, his M.S. in industrial engineering from the University of Texas at El Paso and his Ph.D. in industrial engineering from Texas A&M University. His research and teaching interests are in health and supply chain systems. Griffin's current research focuses on cost-effectiveness modeling of public health interventions, health logistics, health access and economic modeling and supply chain coordination and control.

Monga earned his B.S. from the Indian Institute, Guwhati; and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin, all in electrical engineering. He comes to Penn State after four years with the Xerox Research Labs in Webster, N.Y., and Palo, Alto, Calif. His research lies in statistical signal and image processing with applications in color imaging, multimedia security and mining and statistical learning problems in document processing and genomics.

Rajabipour received his B.S. in civil engineering from Shariff University of Technology, his M.S. in construction engineering and management and his Ph.D. in construction materials, both from Purdue University. His research projects include predicting and improving the durability and service-life of concrete infrastructure, as well as developing new and recycled construction materials such as concrete made with pulverized recycled glass instead of cement and aggregates.  

Treado earned his B.S. in environmental engineering from Stanford University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Maryland. Treado was deputy associate director for technology and environmental policy on the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and previously was a researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He was also an adjunct professor in the professional master?s of engineering program at the University of Maryland and he is the former vice president of research and development at Illumitech, LLC. His research includes sustainable building energy systems and design, mechanical systems and control and renewable energy technologies.

Wang received his B.S. and M.S. from Tsinghua University in Bejing and his Ph.D. from Tulane University, all in chemical engineering. Wang's Energy Nanostructure Laboratory focuses on nanomaterial development for clean energy technologies such as batteries, solar cells, fuel cells and environmental remediation.