The Notre Dame College of Engineering this fall welcomed 5 new members of the faculty.
Mengxue Hou (above far left) joined as assistant professor of electrical engineering. She devises algorithms that prepare robotic systems to be cognizant, taskable, and adaptive. Her aim is to create systems capable of collaborating with humans to explore complex, ever-changing and unknown environments.
Before coming to Notre Dame, Hou was the Lillian Gilbreth postdoctoral fellow at Purdue University. She received her Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology.
Fanxin Kong (above near left) joined as assistant professor of computer science and engineering. Kong’s research area is cyber-physical systems (CPS) that enhance security and safety and facilitate resource management and coexistence among multiple autonomous agents. His work has applications in the development of autonomous vehicles and drones.
Kong received his Ph.D. from McGill University. He previously was an assistant professor at Syracuse University.
Kai Ni (above center) joined as assistant professor of electrical engineering. His research focuses on nanoelectronic devices that enable new computing paradigms and storage technologies. In particular, he works with 3D memory technology and associated computing hardware that can be enabled.
Ni previously was an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Microelectronic Engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University and completed postdoctoral research at Notre Dame.
Jeffrey F. Rhoads (above near right), who this year joined Notre Dame as Vice President for Research, holds an appointment as professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering. He oversees the University’s research infrastructure, including supporting programs in all areas of research, scholarship and creative endeavor.
Before coming to Notre Dame, Rhoads served as executive director of the Purdue Institute for National Security and as a professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering. He received a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Michigan State University.
Charles Wampler (above far right), the Huisking Foundation, Inc. Collegiate Research Professor, holds a joint appointment in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics. His areas of expertise include numerical algebraic geometry, robot and mechanism kinematics, and scientific computing.
Before coming to Notre Dame, Wampler worked for 37 years at General Motors on robotics for automotive manufacturing and modeling of batteries for electric vehicles. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University.
— Karla Cruise, Notre Dame College of Engineering