Research Bios

Assessing leaders and organizations through change, quality management, and over cross-cultural issues, Dr. Akdere works to increase development and effectiveness for both individuals and organizations. Virtual reality facilitates the development of soft skills like cultural awareness and leadership with fewer resource and logistical constraints from existing in-person methods.

Dr. Chen received his Ph.D. degree in the areas of human-computer interaction, information visualization, and visual analytics from the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Canada. He earned Bachelor degree of Engineering from the Tsinghua University (China), and a Master of Science degree in Information Technology from SFU.

Entrepreneurship is an essential economic activity that is often learned through experience. Beyond developing an entrepreneurial mindset and skills in students, Dr. Duval-Couetil examines what explicit and implicit factors attract or hinder the participation of diverse individuals. Working to inspire involvement in entrepreneurship, Dr. Duval-Couetil interacts with students through academic programming and observes through her work with the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (NSF I-CorpsTM).

My research interests are in virtual worlds, games, and education. I received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT, a M.S.E. in Computer Science from Princeton University, and a B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Alberta. In my research, I am interested in building virtual worlds and leveraging existing ones, primarily towards the goals of understanding how virtual worlds influence people, and developing best practices for developing games and learning environments.

With cyber activity increasing exponentially, the opportunity for malevolent actors to procure private information without a user's knowledge also increases. Dr. Karabiyik provides information and strategies to combat this malevolence through his work in digital and cyber forensics, forensic intelligence, user and data privacy, computer and network security, and artificial intelligence. To help digital users understand relevant concerns in cybersecurity, Dr. Karabiyik investigates privacy scenarios and malicious applications to identify incidents and promote strategic defenses people can implement.

Dr. Laux is currently Associate Professor of Computer & Information Technology at Purdue University, West Lafayette and has developed a concentrated area in Lean Six Sigma where he teaches Lean Six Sigma Systems at the Undergraduate and Graduate levels in Computer & Information Technology. His teaching attracts a wide variety of student majors including Computer & Information Technology, Industrial Engineering Technology, Supply Chain Management Technology, and Healthcare Policy and Management.

Dr. Chien-tsung Lu is an aviation professor at Purdue University School of Aviation & Transportation Technology. With a rich background that includes leadership roles such as Chairman of Qingdao Airlines and dean at Yantai Nanshan Aeronautical College, his influence has extended globally. Renowned for his outstanding research in aviation safety and risk management, Dr. Lu has received prestigious awards like the Purdue Fellow and UAA John Lauber Safety Award. He has authored over 70 scholarly works and established collaborative initiatives, such as the Purdue-centered SMS Collegiate Working Group. Additionally, Dr. Lu holds visiting professorships at various aviation universities in China. As the general secretary of the International Association for Prestigious Collegiate Technology & Industry Promotion, he has played a pivotal role in organizing international conferences. In recognition of his exceptional contributions, Dr. Lu was honored with the Peacock Program for International Talents in 2018 by the Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, China.

Leaders in the United States clamor for more college educated science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) graduates. To better support and encourage students in these fields, Dr. Lucietto explores the experience of engineering technology (ET) students through her reasearch projects. Dr. Lucietto uses qualitative and quantiitative methods to examine factors and reasons students choose to study - and persevere through - an engineering technology major.

Learning in STEM fields can be difficult because of complex and abstract concepts. Dr. Magana investigates how educators can leverage the senses of sight and touch to help students better understand abstract STEM concepts as well as computational model-based reasoning to support skills like problem solving. Dr. Magana pairs cyberlearning technologies with traditional instruction to better understand how students learn and help deepen understanding of complex STEM topics.

Prior to working at Purdue University, I spent 3 years as a faculty member in the Technology and Applied Design Program at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. While at Berea College, I taught a variety of manufacturing, design, and quality courses. Prior to teaching, I worked as an application engineer for Tri-C company where I designed and implemented several fixtures for Caterpillar's marine engine facility's machining and assembly processes.

Dr. Min combines the practical and theoretical approaches for maximal impact, and the scope of his research has spanned robotic fundamentals to robot development, as well as system design and integration of robotics technologies and algorithms. His current research focuses on how to enable multiple robots to collaborate with each other in a distributed way and to flexibly interact with any humans, in any situation, anywhere.

Evidence-Based Design, Behavioral Health Design, Impact on Aging, Service-Learning

Transportation systems are inherently complex and vital to our society. To improve the safety and efficiency of these systems, Dr. Mott aggregates distributed data, mathematically models the system, and develops related tools to continuously enhance systems operations. To enable better decision- making for non-towered airports, Dr. Mott incorporates his knowledge in sensors, signals, and aviation to find cost-effective and improved solutions to collect and transmit operations data for increased quality and safety.

My research interests are in Computer Networks, Software Defined Networks (SDN), Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), Cloud-native Infrastructure, Network Security and AI/ML applications to networking. My research philosophy is grounded in the fact that application-centric networks resulting from seamless collaboration between application-layer and network-layer have a marked impact on network management, security, policy frameworks, network services and big data analytics. Importantly, I focus on cross-layer approaches to optimize and secure networks rather than layer-3 approaches that are unaware of the applications’ service and resource requirements. Thus, my research seeks to uncover application-aware networking and its impact on security, service differentiation and efficient data transfers in distributed data-intensive applications.

Li-ion battery cells are ubiquitous energy storage devices due to high volumetric volumetric and gravimetric energy density, high cycle life, and minimal memory effect. However, they present a safety risk under certain conditions. Dr. Ostanek's research focuses on venting and combustion of flammable gases generated during Li-ion failures. His research lies at the intersection of thermal fluid science and battery safety.

Dr. Pradhan studies problems at the intersection of data management and machine learning (ML). Her research is driven by the need to build trustworthy and responsible data-driven decision-making systems. Her research seeks to enable stakeholders of ML-based systems to trust its outcomes. She develops techniques for understanding model outcomes, diagnosing root causes of unexpected or discriminatory model behavior, and fixing data vulnerabilities for a spectrum of application domains and user expertise. Her past research focused on data integration and data quality. She leveraged active learning and knowledge bases to design solutions that resolve conflicts in data integrated from disparate data sources to generate high quality, reliable, and trusted data for trustworthy data analytics.

Zach provides general support for web-related issues, designs and develops new recruitment and yield communications and applies his mad design skills to all things Polytechnic. Zach is a graduate of the computer graphics technology program at Purdue. He lives in an old farm house made nice again in West Lafayette with his wife Rachael, sons Everett and Graham, two foster girls, their fluffy Goldendoodle, Bailey, a cat he can never remember the name of and an ever expanding flock of chickens and rabbits. When Zach was a youngster he loved recess and he still spends most of his non-work time playing outside. He loves woodworking, mountain biking, dirt biking and growing veggies for his family and coworkers. When he's not doing that, he dreams about how to use new technologies to attract students to the Purdue Polytechnic Institute. Zach is always willing to help, so feel free to contact him no matter what your web or marketing needs. If he can't do it, someone else likely can, but it will cost money.

Developing and researching novel technology innovations for air vehicle maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO), Dr. Ropp focuses his research on next-generation aerospace manufacturing; lifecycle management; and managing safety risk for surface operations. Training workers to use advanced technologies in the MRO industry can reduce training time, ensure relevant procedures are available when needed, and decrease errors.

Dr. Abdul Salam is an Assistant Professor with the Department of Computer and Information Technology, Purdue University. He holds a Ph.D. from University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He is the Director of the Environmental Networking Technology Laboratory at Purdue University. He has also taught at the Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan and Islamia University, Bahawalpur. He served in Pakistan Army for 9 years in a number of command, staff, and field roles. He held the principal position at the Army Public School and College, Thal Cantonment. He has won several awards including the ICCCN 2016 Best Student Paper Award, the Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Institute Fellowship, the Gold Medal MS (CS) on securing first position in order of merit, and the 2016–2017 Outstanding Graduate Student Research Award from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He is the author of two books, Internet of Things for Sustainable Community Development, and Signals in the Soil. He has published over 50 research articles in major journals and international conferences. His recent research focuses on underground soil sensing, wireless communications, Internet of underground things in digital agriculture, sensor-guided irrigation systems, and vehicular communications. He has served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE GRSS Remote Sensing Code Library from 2016 to 2018. He serves as the Associate Editor of the Advanced Electromagnetics Journal and Array (Elsevier). Dr. Salam received his B.Sc. and M.S. degrees in computer science from Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan, in 2001 and 2004, respectively, the M.S. degree in computer engineering from UET, Taxila, Pakistan, in 2012, and the Ph.D. degree in computer engineering from the Cyber-Physical Networking Laboratory, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA.

Salem T., Workman S., Jacobs N., Learning a Dynamic Map of Visual Appearance. In: IEEE Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR 2020)

Dr. Seigfried-Spellar's instrumental research intersects multiple fields, including the behavioral sciences, artificial intelligence, biometrics, and digital forensics. She has made a significant impact worldwide with her total number of citations exceeding 2000 - with an average of 268 citations per year for the last 5 years and an H-Index of 22 (Google Scholar). From 2019-2024, 43.8% of journal publications were in the Top 10% Journal Percentiles (SJR) and 23% were in the top 10% most cited publications worldwide (SciVal). 14% of her publications are co-authored with researchers in other countries (SciVal). Her research has resulted in over 40 peer-reviewed journal publications, the co-authored book, Cybercrime and Digital Forensics (now in its 3rd ed.), 13 peer-reviewed conference proceedings, 6 book chapters, and over 80 conference presentations (32 invited). She has built a robust research and engagement program by spearheading numerous funded federal and state grant proposals, amassing over $3.5 million from various sources including the US Department of Justice, US National Institute of Justice, US National Science Foundation, US National Security Agency, and Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention, to name a few.

My current research focuses on better understanding how learners behave, feel, and perceive in immersive learning environments to reinforce the development of their knowledge and skills. Another research focus is on better understanding human factors and their interaction with buildings to create sustainable and comfortable environments. To this end, I have developed a multi-disciplinary research framework which integrates human sensing technologies, VR, AR, and AI into the environments.

To increase a student's design capabilities and help ensure that every student has the opportunity to act, think, and learn like an engineer, Dr. Strimel studies how engineering and technology instructional interventions affect design cognition and performance. To empower the workers of the future, Dr. Strimel promotes problem-solving and other 21st century skills by investigating how to best teach engineering design to P-12 students.

My research focuses on two core areas: construction management and project & risk management. During my Master’s studies, I contributed to various research projects, including non-destructive methods in construction, energy-efficient and sustainable building practices, and structural analysis of steel structures in seismic zones. Afterward, I shifted my focus towards project and risk management in complex construction projects. I was involved in the ANR-GERMA research project, which addressed risk management in complex civil engineering projects. This national initiative, funded by the French National Agency for Research (ANR), was carried out in collaboration with key industry stakeholders. During my Ph.D., I specialized in managing and mitigating risks for large-scale construction projects, such as Public-Private Partnerships (PPP), Design-Build-Maintenance, and Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) projects, with the support of Vinci Construction France. I developed a comprehensive Risk Management Process (RMP) that addresses the full lifecycle of complex construction projects, from the design phase through to maintenance. This systematic process encompasses multiple dimensions, including technical, financial, economic, legal, safety, and environmental factors, and aims to identify, assess, and mitigate critical risks. Currently, my research explores advanced topics such as Building Information Modeling (BIM), big data analytics for complex construction projects, and the adaptation of risk management methodologies from industrial engineering, such as Functional Analysis, to the construction sector. I am also working on a multi-agent model and knowledge-based systems to enhance project and risk management in complex construction environments. My interdisciplinary approach bridges construction engineering, project management, and data science. I have a particular interest in project simulation and operations management under uncertainty, BIM & Virtual Design, data analytics in construction management, and risk management strategies in complex engineering projects. This blend of theory and practical application deepens my research, offering fresh insights into real-world project conditions and stakeholder dynamics.

Delving into the nanostructure of metals and alloys, Dr. Wang integrates materials science, chemistry, and mechanics with advanced manufacturing to solve problems in materials processing and applications and access new properties. From the fundamental understanding of lightweight alloys and composites to designing new components, Dr. Wang explores alloy and metal characteristics achieve more with materials.

Composite materials consist of two or more materials combined to achieve specific structural properties. To improve aircraft design and maintenance, Dr. Wang innovates composite materials and studies their sustainability for the aircraft maintenance environment. The use of composite materials promises stronger and more fuel efficient aircraft, but can be difficult to repair. Dr. Wang and his team develop composite repair and recycling techniques to improve the sustainability of composite materials.

The growth in available digital data has the potential to increase efficiency and operations within our lives. Dr. Yang immerses himself where the transfer of this data enables machine learning, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things, but also increases the need for security. The amount of data handled by Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices is growing rapidly and creating an immediate demand for improved cybersecurity practices.

His research is focused on the adoption of technology in the aviation operations area, flight safety and training, online flight training, single pilot operations and economical approach of the software and hardware localization in the formation of the aviation - military projects. He works on a project in the appropriation of aviation electronics and related technologies in single pilot operation - AI (VR-AR-MR -SATCE) and transition to AAM . Also he is interested in the competition between Europe and the USA in the aviation industry in and after the cold war period worldwide.