The College of Engineering welcomed 15 new faculty this fall, with new faculty joining each of the five departments.

“We are so fortunate to have been able to hire such a promising group of scholars,” said Manos Maragakis, dean of the College. “Their research strengths will promote the strategic vision of the College of Engineering by building state-of-the-art capacity in advanced manufacturing research and by creating new educational programs for our students.”

Eight of the new faculty were hired for their expertise in advanced manufacturing as part of a University-wide commitment to establish the University as an international leader in advanced manufacturing. The College has research programs in advanced manufacturing across a variety of disciplines.

Here’s a look at three of the newly hired faculty:

James Hanna, associate professor of mechanical engineering

Hanna decided to join the University after being impressed with both the department and the city of Reno. Hanna, who was originally interested in materials science and engineering, found that some of the discipline’s fundamentals like classical mechanics and soft matter physics were some of the things he actually preferred. Mechanical engineering, Hanna said, is broad but captures everything, and he has worked on a number of projects involving topics like flexible structures and issues in manufacturing.

 “If you like using your hands and seeing the world through math and science, engineering is a great discipline,” Hanna said.

 Floriana Petrone, assistant professor of civil engineering

 Petrone researches the nonlinear seismic analysis of reinforced concrete and hybrid systems. She also works with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California. Her work with the LBNL focuses on analyzing soil-structure interaction and is a collaboration with both the University of Nevada, Reno and the University of California, Davis.

 “The earthquake engineering lab is great and I’ve had great opportunities to work with people from here in the past,” Petrone said.

 Another project Petrone has in development with California power supplier PG&E concerns the design of a regional-scale data system for enhanced earthquake and risk assessments for gas and electrical systems.

 Haoting Shen, assistant professor of computer science and engineering

 Shen focuses his research on the development of novel devices and circuits for different hardware security applications, like hardware security primitives, supply chain security, the Internet of Things, or IoT, and anti-reverse engineering. He also is looking for students to work on hardware security primitives, specifically Ph.D. students, as they need two years to get prepared for hardware design.

 “I am at the University because of the collaborative faculty team research on cybersecurity, the promising research support and future opportunities, and Reno is a lovely city that’s not too far from the Bay Area,” Shen said. “It’s good to reach out to the industries there.”

 Here is a complete list of the new hires:

 Chemical and Material:

Maryam Raeeszadeh-Sarmazdeh

M. Rashed Khan

Yufeng Zheng

Civil and Environmental:

Hamed Ebrahimian

Elnaz Esmaeilzadeh Seylabi

Floriana Petrone

Computer Science and engineering:

Haoting Shen

Shahriar Badsha

Christos Papachristos

Erin Keith

Electrical and Biomedical engineering:

Ji Yoon

Jeongwon Park

Mechanical:

James Hanna

Yifei Jin

Petros Voulgaris