Department Updates

Bioengineering (BE)

Dr. Randal Westrick received NIH and American Heart Association research grants of $450,000 and $155,000. This funding will continue his research of the genetics of thrombosis.

Dr. Randal Westrick and Dr. Luis Villa-Diaz got approval of their application for $165,000 for the American Heart Association Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship.

Dr. Randal Westrick and Dr. Fabia Battistuzzi received $2,000,000 grant that provides funding (stipend, tuition, and healthcare) for four graduate students per year to engage in developing entrepreneurial skills for the comics sciences.

Dr. Luis Villa-Diaz and Dr. Gerard Madlambayan received $450,000 to support the proposal that aims at elucidating the stem cell niche for hematopoietic stem cells present in lung tumors.

Dr. Luis Villa-Diaz received $250,000 for his project that targets development and testing of synthetic substrates for the derivation and culture of human-induced pluripotent stem cells translatable to clinical applications.

Dr. Randal Westrick was chosen for the 2023 XIANGQUN ZENG MOST ACTIVE GRANT SEEKER award given to the investigator who submitted the highest number of federal proposals for the reporting year.

Bioengineering students, Olivia Racette and Molly Vue, received the Interdisciplinary Oral Presentation Award in Advances in Computation and the Undergraduate Poster Presentation Award in Engineering, respectively, at SigmaXI International Forum on Research Excellence.

Computer Science and Engineering (CSE)

Dr. Hua Ming was appointed the interim chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

Dr. Mehdi Bagherzadeh was appointed the academic programs coordinator of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

Dr. Mohammad Wardat joined the CSE faculty as Assistant Professor.

New programs for 2023:

• B.S. in Artificial Intelligence
• B.S. in Cyber Security
• M.S. in Artificial Intelligence
• Combined bachelor/masters degrees:
Computer Science, B.S., Software Engineering and Information Technology, M.S.
Computer Science, B.S./Cybersecurity, M.S.
Computer Science, Combined B.S./M.S.
Information Technology, B.S./Computer Science, M.S.,
Information Technology, B.S./Cybersecurity, M.S.
Information Technology, B.S./Software Engineering and Information Technology, M.S.
• Graduate certificates:
Foundations of Computer Science
Edge AI and IoT
Artificial Intelligence for Cyber Security and Trustworthy AI
Augmented and Virtual Reality
Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations
Embedded Artificial Intelligence
Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0
Machine Vision and Robotics

Automation Alley and the School of Engineering and Computer Science have
been awarded $2 million from the U.S. Department of Office of Cyber Security, Energy Security, and Emergency Response to create a university-based cyber security center in Michigan.

Dr. Sunny Raj was awarded a National Science Foundation Computer and Information Science and Engineering Research Initiation Initiative (NSF CRII) grant for IMMENSE: “In-memory machine learning using sneak-paths in crossbars for robustness and energy efficiency.”

Dr. Tianle Ma (PI) received funding for his CRII NSF proposal “Self-Supervised Graph Neural Network Meta-Learning for Cancer Multi-Omics and Driver Discovery." Dr. Ma was awarded $156,911 for the duration of two years.

Dr. Lanyu (Lori) Xu (PI), was awarded an NSF CRII grant for her project CRII: “CNS: OCEAN: A Once-for-All Edge Collaboration System for Medical Imaging.” Dr. Xu was awarded $175,000 for the duration of two years.

Dr. Sunny Raj (co-PI) was awarded a DOE project titled “Mobilizing the Emerging Diverse AI Talent (MEDAL) through Design and Automated Control of Autonomous Scientific Laboratories” for the duration of three years. Dr. Raj’s share is $600,000.

Dr. Huirong Fu was appointed to the rank of Distinguished Professor.

Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE)

Augmented Reality Center, a collaboration between OU’s School of Engineering and Computer Science and the College for Creative Studies, officially opened its doors. The center is directed by Dr. Khalid Mirza.

Dr. Geoffrey Louie was named the recipient of two OU awards: 2023 MOST RESEARCH ACTIVE award as well as the 2023 OUTSTANDING JUNIOR INVESTIGATOR award. These honors are awarded by the OU Office of Research.

Dr. Jun Chen was named a recipient of the 2023 XIANGQUN ZENG MOST ACTIVE GRANT SEEKER award from OU Office of Research.

Oakland University has joined a coalition of universities and colleges in Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Indiana that have come together to form a group called the Midwest Regional Network to Address National Needs in Semiconductor and Microelectronics. Dr. Hongwei Qu serves as the liaison to the Midwest Semiconductor Network.

The third part of the 21st IEEE Embedded System Workshop took place in-person at Oakland University. It was sponsored by the IEEE Computer Chapter and Education Chapter of the IEEE Southeastern Michigan Section. There were seven speakers from industry and academia and over 70 attendees who discussed various topics related to embedded systems.

Dr. Daniel Aloi received a $3 million grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology to equip a lab for the research and development of wireless communication systems in vehicles

Dr. Jun Chen obtained a five-year, $500,000 CAREER award from the National Science Foundation for research on maximizing the driving range and sustainability of battery electric vehicles.

Dr. Geoffrey Louie received a five-year, $586,000 CAREER award from the National Science Foundation to support his research on social robots.

Dr. Amanpreet Kaur has been awarded a NSF ERI grant in the amount of $198,496.00 for her proposal titled "ERI: Low-Cost, Miniaturized, Wideband and Wide-Angle Beam Steering Array For 5G Communication System."

Dr. Subra Ganesan and his student Bing Liu have been awarded the Best Paper Award at the 2023 International Conference on Communication and Information Technology (ICCIT) for their paper titled "Expand Object Detection Dataset Automatically via Deep Learning Neural Networks."

Dr. Subra Ganesan received the IEEE Robert Neff Memorial Award from the Engineering Society of Detroit (ESD) for his outstanding contributions.

Dr. Shadi Alawneh was named a member of the Oakland County Executive's Oakland Together 40 Under 40 Class of 2023. The program recognizes and spotlights dynamic leaders under the age of 40 who are making a difference in Oakland County and beyond.

Dr. Jia Li was recognized as OU's 2023 Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award recipient!

Dr. Steven Louis led the formal establishment of the IEEE Southeastern Michigan Section- Magnetics Society Chapter. The chapter was approved on 08 June 2023 with Dr. Louis as chair.

Dr. Jun Chen received the Best Paper Award at 2023 IEEE EIT Conference. The paper was first authored by Ph.D. student, Zhaodong Zhou, and co-authored by industrial collaborators at Isuzu Motors.

Three ECE faculty members were promoted the rank of Associate Professor with Tenure: Dr. Shadi Alawneh, Dr. S. Ali Arefifar, and Dr. Wing-Yue Geoffrey Louie.

Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE)

Dr. Barbara Oakley has received the Gold, E-Learning Experience award for her "Uncommon Sense Teaching Specialization" in Coursera. The 2023 International E-Learning Awards recognized individuals and groups for their innovative use of technology to improve learning and job performance.

Dr. Barbara Oakley was among three leaders in their fields who were recognized for their extraordinary achievements with the first-time McGraw Prize. She received the award for lifelong learning, a recognition of our society’s changing need to help learners of all ages grow in and out of the classroom.

Dr. Ali Malik's research proposal titled "Intelligent Digital Twins to Build Resilient Smart Factories" has been approved by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) under the Measurement Science and Engineering Research Grant.

Mechanical Engineering (ME) 

Dr. Xia Wang was appointed the interim chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

A new minor in Mechanical Engineering was approved by the SECS Assembly and is expected to launch in Fall 2024.

A new specialization, “Electrified Propulsion,” in the ME undergraduate program is expected to launch in the Fall of 2024.

A combined BS/MS program in mechanical engineering was approved by the Oakland University Graduate Council. The program is expected to launch in Fall 2024.

Dr. Zissimos Mourelatos, Dr. Lianxiang Yang, and Dr. Sergey Golovashchenko were named among the “Top 2% of scientists in various disciplines” by Stanford University in October 2023.

Dr. Sergey Golovashchenko was elected to be a president of North American Deep Drawing Research Group. The research group organizes research symposiums on sheet metal forming twice a year.

Dr. Chris Cooley received a $66,950.55 grant from the Army Research laboratory for the project “Damage-induced Nonlinear Vibration in Planetary Gears.”

Dr. Sarah Beetham received an $8,000 grant from the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) for "Planting SEEDS (Sustainable Engineering Educational Development and Support) at OU”

Dr. Yongsoon Yoon’s proposal, titled "ERI: Hydraulic Cylinder Diagnostics Using Nonlinear Inverse Model Estimation and Frequency Domain Analysis," was awarded the prestigious ERI NSF grant in the amount of $200,000.

Dr. Jonathan Maisonneuve secured funds for his ERI NSF proposal, titled "Fertilizer-Based Liquid Desiccants: New Possibilities for Energy Efficient Dehumidification and Water Recycling." This two-year project was awarded $200,000.

Dr. Sergey Golovashchenko received $47,348 t from GM for the proposal “Coefficient of friction evaluation for forming.”

Doctoral student Suhas Gupta Thunuguntla (Ph.D. Advisor Dr. Chris Cooley) was awarded a Graduate AGMA Foundation Scholarship from the American Gear Manufacturers Association.

Dr. Lianxiang Yang, Dr. Marco Gerini-Romagnoli and Ph.D. students, Bicheng Guo and Zhongfang Gao, received the best Paper Award-1st runner up for their paper “Study of Adhesive Joints Quality Based on Multi-Camera Dic System” at the 2023 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Expo.

Dr. Sayed Nassar, Dr. Marco Gerini-Romagnoli, Dr. Massimiliano De Agostinis (Università di Bologna, Italy), and Ph.D. student Khushboo Tedlapu received the best Paper Award-2nd runner up for their paper “Vibration Loosening Performance of Additively-Manufactured Bolted Joints” at the 2023 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Expo.

The department was recognized for having the greatest proportion of faculty with funded new research awards at the 2023 Research, Innovation and Engagement Town Hall meeting.