SEAS Welcomes 12 New Faculty Members

By Elizabeth Egan 

The new faculty will help bring the benefits of SEAS research and educational excellence to global and local communities in ways that impact the world for the better.

Learn more about each of SEAS’s newest faculty members, including their prior education, research interests and what they are looking forward to in their new positions. 

Sarah F. Muldoon, associate professor

Joins UB from: The University at Buffalo’s Department of Mathematics, where Muldoon was an associate professor.

Research interests: Using network theory and AI to study the relationship between brain structure and function.

What are you most excited about as you start at UB: I have actually already been at UB for 10 years, but I’m excited to be joining a department that focuses on transdisciplinary research.

Education: PhD, University of Michigan

Hometown: Norman, Oklahoma

Hsinhan (Dave) Tsai, assistant professor

Joins UB from: The University of California, Berkeley, where Tsai was a postdoctoral research associate.

Research interests: Clean energy, sustainable materials, and hybrid semiconductors.

What are you most excited about as you start at UB: I am most excited to build my independent research group, collaborate with colleagues across disciplines, and contribute to UB’s growing strength in materials innovation and sustainable technologies.

Education: PhD, Rice University

Hometown: Kinmen Island, Taiwan (R.O.C.)

Grigorios (Greg) Lavrentiadis, assistant professor

Joins UB from: The California Institute of Technology, where Lavrentiadis was a postdoctoral research associate.

Research interests: Ground motion modeling, seismic hazard, earthquake engineering and resilience.

What are you most excited about as you start at UB: Building a collaborative research group, mentoring students, and advancing earthquake resilience of civil infrastructure.

Education: PhD, University of California, Berkeley

Hometown: Thessaloniki, Greece

Cesar Poveda, associate professor of teaching

Joins UB from: A year of sabbatical following various roles in higher education institutions in Canada, the United States, and South America.

Research interests: Engineering, construction, project management, sustainability, science and operational research, and decision analysis.

What are you most excited about as you start at UB: Besides working in a well-positioned university with a prestigious group of scholars, it is exciting to be part of the founding faculty in the new focus area of construction engineering and management in the Department of Civil, Structural, and Environmental Engineering.

Education: PhD, University of Alberta

Hometown: Vancouver, Canada

Charlie Carlson, assistant professor

Joins UB from: The University of California, Santa Barbara where Carlson was a postdoctoral researcher.

Research interests: Combinatorial optimization, randomized algorithms, spectral graph theory, and approximate counting. 

What are you most excited about as you start at UB: I'm excited to work with students and introduce them to the deep and beautiful field of theoretical computer science.

Education: PhD, University of Colorado, Boulder

Hometown: Larsen Bay, Alaska

Harrison Goldstein, assistant professor

Joins UB from: The University of Maryland, where Goldstein was a postdoctoral researcher.

Research interests: Usable approaches to software correctness and programming languages.

What are you most excited about as you start at UB: Getting to meet and work with the students! I’m not teaching undergrads yet, but I will be starting next semester, and I’m super excited to get started.

Education: PhD, University of Pennsylvania

Hometown: Freehold, New Jersey

Shimiao (Cindy) Li, assistant professor

Joins UB from: Carnegie Mellon, where Li completed her PhD.

Research interests: Power system situational awareness and decision support.

What are you most excited about as you start at UB: I am excited about working with my PhD students on exciting research topics.

Education: PhD, Carnegie Mellon University

Hometown: China

Kinga Winnicka Ludwig, assistant professor of teaching

Joins UB from: UB’s Department of English, where Ludwig was a visiting assistant professor.

Research interests: STEM in literature, science fiction, ecocriticism, urban theory and Native American literatures.

What are you most excited about as you start at UB: I most look forward to learning with bright, diverse students in STEM/engineering fields and to collaborating with fellow faculty on innovative pedagogical methods.

Education: PhD, University at Buffalo

Hometown: Warsaw, Poland

Maria Lehman, Samuel P. Capen Professor of Engineering Management

Joins UB from: Multinational consulting engineering company GHD, where Lehman was the director of U.S. infrastructure.

Research interests: Expediting engineering management skills in undergraduates.

What are you most excited about as you start at UB: Since I am a proud alumna, coming back to UB to teach after a very successful career in consulting and government engineering feels like I am coming home. My work will be to teach our future leaders how to accelerate their professional development.

Education: BS, University at Buffalo

Hometown: Orchard Park, New York

Jiayu Peng, assistant professor

Joins UB from: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Peng earned his PhD.

Research interests: AI for science, catalysis, electrochemistry, physics-informed machine learning and data-driven materials design.

What are you most excited about as you start at UB: I am most excited about growing as a scholar and educator at the nexus of AI and materials science and contributing to our community at SEAS and UB.

Education: PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Hometown: Chengdu, China

Ganesh Sivaraman, assistant professor

Joins UB from: The Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign’s Molecule Maker Lab Institute, where Sivaraman served as an assistant computational scientist and research assistant professor, respectively.

Research interests: Machine learning, atomistic modeling, molecular design and materials discovery.

What are you most excited about as you start at UB: I am most excited to build an interdisciplinary research group that integrates machine learning with atomistic modeling to accelerate molecular and materials design, while also contributing to UB’s vibrant teaching and research community.

Education: PhD, University of Stuttgart, Germany

Hometown: Calicut, India

Justin Del Vecchio, assistant professor of teaching

Joins UB from: Canisius University, where Del Vecchio was an assistant professor of computer science.

Research interests: The applications of AI to engineering fields.

What are you most excited about as you start at UB: Two things excite me. First is the team environment at UB where you feel part of a larger mission and supported by all, and second is the students who are terrific and extremely interested in learning.

Education: PhD, University at Buffalo

Hometown: Buffalo, NY