The Office of the Vice President for Research would like to recognize several junior faculty members who have recently won prestigious NSF CAREER awards: Professors Timothy Vadas, Avinash Dongare, Sung Yeul Park, Lan-Hsuan Huang, and Kay Wille. The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program includes 13 program areas, and awards substantial financial support to a highly competitive group of junior faculty to advance outstanding research, promote excellence in education, and encourage collaboration and cooperation between education and research. Please take a moment to read about the exciting research that resulted in these distinguished and sizable awards.
Dr. Avinash Dongare, Assistant Professor in Materials Science and Engineering—whose project entitled “Mesoscale Modeling of Defect Structure Evolution in Metallic Materials” contributes to the goals of the Materials Genome Initiative—was awarded support from the NSF Directorate of Engineering’s Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation Division in the amount of $500,000. This project uses computational mechanics to perform virtual analyses of structural metallic materials for use in extreme environments. This information would help advance the development of materials for next generation automotive, aerospace, and defense applications. For more, click here.
Dr. Kay Wille, Assistant Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering, also received a $500,000 award from the NSF Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation Division for his project “Understanding Behavior and Properties of Nano-Sized Particles in Cement-Based Materials.” The impact of his research could mean significant improvements in materials used in construction, by investigating the behavior and properties of nano-sized particles in cement-based materials. For more, click here.
NSF’s Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems division has awarded Dr. Timothy Vadas, Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, $500,000 for his research addressing the increasingly urbanized landscape, as well as the growing negative impact of metals from both stormwater and wastewater effluent on organisms in streams. His project, “Impact of Urbanization on Organic Carbon-Metal Interactions and Trophic Transfer in Streams,” which will assess the interactions of the different metal forms with benthic microbial communities into macroinvertebrate organisms, is expected to help develop more effective management strategies for impaired streams in urban areas. For more, click here.
Dr. Lan-Hsuan Huang, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, has been awarded $400,648 from NSF’s Division of Mathematical Sciences for her project, “Geometric Problems in General Relativity.” Drawing from Einstein’s theories of relativity and gravitation, Huang’s theoretical research in geometric analysis seeks to better understand what shapes are possible in the universe. In so doing, it would be possible to obtain more accurate calculations of physical properties, such as predicting the mass of stars, planets, etc. Huang also plans to use some of her award to further the geometric analysis program at UConn. For more, see UConn Today.
Dr. Sung Yeul Park, Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, received a $500,000 award from the NSF Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems for his project, “Enabling Higher-Performance Battery Charging Systems: Adaptive and Optimal Charging Algorithms Based on Dynamic Battery Characteristics.” In his research, Dr. Park seeks to improve upon battery charging systems featuring longer life and greater efficiency for application in electric vehicles, renewable energy storage, and back-up power. Significantly improved performance and affordability of such systems will be possible as a result of this research, which promises a better understanding of high-power battery behavior. For more, click here.
The Office of the Vice President for Research applauds these faculty members for their clear commitment to research excellence, outstanding teaching, and community engagement. Congratulations on your achievements!
For more information, contact: Jessica McBride at jessica.mcbride@uconn.edu