Schaefer School of Engineering and Science newsletter header
Schaefer School of Engineering and Science newsletter header


NEWSLETTER | MARCH 2025

DEAN'S OFFICE

  • Congratulations to the AY2024-25 Schaefer School Faculty Awards recipients:
    • Schaefer School Research Funding Award
      • Xiaojun Yu, BME
      • Cheng Chen, CEOE
      • Marouane Temimi, CEOE
      • Igor Pikovski, PHY – TT recipient
    • Schaefer School Education Innovation & Impact Award
      • Antonia Zaferiou, BME – Undergraduate
      • Cristina Comaniciu, ECE – Graduate
    • Schaefer School Lifetime Achievement Award
      • David Vaccari, CEOE Emeritus Professor
 
  • Congratulations to Patricia Muisener, CCB Teaching Professor, on receiving the Stevens Distinguished Teacher-Mentor (DTM) Award.
 
  • Congratulations to the following NTS faculty on their promotions:
    • Jonathan Miller, CEOE Research Associate Professor, is promoted to Research Professor, effective September 1, 2025.
    • Sarath Jagupilla, CEOE Teaching Associate Professor, is promoted to Teaching Professor, effective September 1, 2025.
    • Alexander Taam, MS Teaching Assistant Professor, is promoted to Teaching Associate Professor, effective September 1, 2025.
    • Chang Beom Joo, ME Lecturer, is promoted to Senior Lecturer, effective September 1, 2025.
 
  • SES 3-Minute Thesis (3MT) Final Graduate Competition will be held on Thursday, April 3, from 2:00–5:00 p.m. in the UCC TechFlex Auditorium. 
  • The next SES Networking Ideas and Exchange (NIEx) Forum will be held on Thursday, April 3, from 12:00–1:30 p.m. in Babbio 541A. The theme for the session is Doctoral Student Training: from Recruitment to Job Placement.
  • Stevens Mathematical Olympiad will take place on Saturday, May 17, from 9:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m. on campus. Volunteers are needed from 8:15 a.m.–2:00 p.m. Learn more and register to volunteer.
 
  • Departmental Events
    • March 29–30 - CS Hackathon
    • April 2 - MS Industry Connection Event
    • April 9 - CEOE Battle of the Programs
    • April 9 - Math PME Event
    • April 16 - ME Spring Fest
    • April 23 - ME Alumni Event in NYC
    • April 29 - CEOE AI in Construction Workshop

FUNDING NEWS

Jason Rabinovitch (ME)

Jason Rabinovitch (PI), ME Assistant Professor, received an ONR award of $1.07M for his project “Advancing Understanding of and Predictive Modeling Capabilities for High-Speed Shock-Induced Droplet Aerobreakup and Surface Damage.”

A portrait of Jason Rabinovitch

Muhammad Hajj (CEOE & DL), Jon Miller (CEOE & DL), and Marouane Temimi (CEOE)

Muhammad Hajj (PI), CEOE Chair, Director of Davidson Laboratory, and George Meade Bond Professor; Jon Miller (Co-PI), CEOE & DL Research Associate Professor; and Marouane Temimi (Co-PI), CEOE Associate Professor, received an NOAA award of $900K for their project “Stevens Extreme Event Coastal Preparedness and Response System.”

A portrait of Muhammad Hajj
A portrait of Jon Miller
A portrait of Marouane Temimi

Hao Wang (ECE)

Hao Wang (PI), ECE Assistant Professor, received an NSF award of $150K for his project “Collaborative Research: CISE MSI: RDP: CNS: Towards the Resilient NextG Network Design for Federated Learning over Mobile Devices.”

A portrait of Hao Wang

FACULTY ACHIEVEMENTS

Igor Pikovski (PHY)

The work of Igor Pikovski, PHY Assistant Professor, titled "Detecting Single Gravitons with Quantum Sensing," was recognized in Nature Communications as one of the "Top 25 Papers of 2024" and selected as the top paper overall in the Physics category.

A portrait of Igor Pikovski

Shima Hajimirza (ME)

Shima Hajimirza, ME Associate Professor, has been elected as a member of the Board of Directors at the American Society of Thermal and Fluid Engineers (ASTFE) for a three-year term starting July 1, 2025.

A portrait of Shima Hajimirza

Hongbin Li (ECE)

Hongbin Li, ECE Charles and Rosanna Batchelor Memorial Chair Professor, received the 2024 IEEE SPS Signal Processing Letters Best Paper Award for his paper "Compressed Channel Estimation for Intelligent Reflecting Surface-Assisted Millimeter Wave Systems." This prestigious award recognizes the best paper published in IEEE Signal Processing Letters within the last five years, with only one paper selected annually.

A portrait of Hongbin Li

Eui-Hyeok Yang (ME), Chang-Hwan Choi (ME), Brendan Englot (ME)

Eui-Hyeok Yang, ME Professor, Chang-Hwan Choi, ME Professor, and Brendan Englot, ME Anson Wood Burchard Endowed Professor and Director of SIAI, received a U.S. Patent on February 11, 2025 for their invention Oil Cleanup and Recovery Using Smart Polymer Integrated Surface Vessels.

A portrait of Eui-Hyeok Yang
A portrait of Chang-Hwan Choi
A portrait of Brendan Englot
 

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENTS

2025 MLCommons ML and Systems Rising Star

Hanfei Yu, ECE Ph.D. student advised by Hao Wang, received the highly esteemed and widely recognized honor of being selected as one of the 2025 ML and Systems Rising Stars. This year, they received over 150 global applicants of which only 38 were accepted to be part of the 2025 cohort. Read more about the program.

Portrait of Hanfei Yu

Innovation Lab (iLab) Grand Prize Winner

Christopher Engelbart, CS undergraduate student advised by Dominic Duggan, attended the 2024 Disability: IN Global Conference, where he led a group challenge during the Innovation Lab (iLab) powered by Experian. His team designed a gamified app to help individuals with disabilities build credit and improve financial literacy, winning the grand prize of $4.5K, surpassing seven other teams.

Portrait of Christopher Engelbart

Designing ACTIONABLE Solutions for a Secure Homeland (DASSH) Student Design Challenge Winners

Gabriel Pust and Andrew Vallent, CEOE undergraduate students, along with team member Cian Gahan, won the first place award of $10K in the 2025 DASSH Student Design Challenge (Hackathon), supported by DHS and organized by ASU. View the team's final presentation. 

From left, Andrew Vallent, Gabriel Pust and Cian Gahan

Engineers Without Borders Conference Presentation

The Stevens Institute of Technology Chapter of Engineers Without Borders USA showcased its Peru project at the 2025 EWB National Conference. The group also co-hosted a joint presentation with the New York professional chapter; and was selected as runner up in the EWB photo contest.

4 panelist and a host during a presentation
Stevens students wearing ''Soar with SES'' shirts at the conference.
 
 

Have you worked on an interesting project, or won an award or competition? 
Submit your student achievement to be considered for the next SES Newsletter. 

 

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS

Stevens, American Physical Society Team on Successful Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics

Stevens selected as one of 15 hosts for annual conference that supports students as they navigate the physics world

A group of students pose for a picture behind a branded large frame using Stevens, American Physics Society and CUWIP branding.

Benjamin Paren Investigates Materials at the Nanoscale to Help Address Challenges in Global Energy Sustainability

Stevens research on polymer electrolytes might help pave the way for safer, more efficient energy storage solutions

Abstract image of battery energy storage

Hongjun Wang is Leading the Way to a New Era in Multiple Myeloma Treatment

Stevens researcher’s paper in Haematologica details a groundbreaking approach to keeping patient cancer cells alive — an essential step toward improving therapies to destroy them

Professor Hongjun Wang left points at a computer screen while student researcher Zhuozhuo Yin looks at the computer screen

Stevens Researcher Creates First Asset-Level, Nationwide Model of U.S. Energy Systems as Part of National Science Foundation Project

In his recent paper, Amro Farid shares his innovative process in developing a big-picture view of America’s electricity, gas, oil and coal infrastructure

A graphic depicting a grid map of the United States overlayed with icons of different energy sources such as windmills, power plants and solar panels.
MORE HIGHLIGHTS
 

EVENTS 

April
Eighteen

Good Friday: — No Classes; Offices Open

 

04/01/25: 3MT Participant Rehearsal

 

04/02/25: Stevens Faculty Meeting

 

04/02/25: Mathematical Sciences Industry Connection Event

 

04/03/25: NIEx Forum 

 

04/03/25: SES 3-Minute Thesis (3MT) Final Graduate Competition

 

04/05-06/25: Admitted Student Weekend 

 

04/14/25: Faculty Advisory Council (FAC) Meeting

 

04/16/25: SES Faculty Workshop: How to Prepare for Promotion (for NTS Faculty)

 

04/18/25: Good Friday: No Classes; Offices Open

 

04/21/25: SES Grad: End of Year Master's Student Send-Off Event

 

04/23/25: Conversation with the President (Faculty and Staff)

 

04/23/25: SES Faculty Workshop: How to Prepare for Promotion and/or Tenure (for TS faculty)

 

04/28/25: President's Distinguished Lecture Series

 

04/28/25: SES DUSAC Meeting

 

04/29/25: AI in Construction Day

 

04/29/25: Women's Faculty Luncheon

 

The archive of past SES Newsletters can be found here.

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