Congratulations to the following eight faculty members at UWM’s College of Engineering & Applied Science, each of whom was honored with a named professorship or named fellowship.
The named professorships and fellowships support the growth of some of the college’s key research areas and honor recipients’ research, teaching and scholarship. They were made possible by the generosity of recent donors. “I am very grateful to our donors, who were excited to support our faculty in this way,” said Dean Brett Peters.
Named professorships:
Junjie Niu was awarded a Richard and Joanne Grigg Professorship. Niu is designing next-generation batteries for electronic devices and electronic vehicles that provide high-energy density and last longer; in other research he is addressing drinking water and groundwater decontamination.
Xiao Qin was awarded a Lawrence E. Sivak ’71 Professorship. Qin, a nationally renowned expert in transportation data analytics and highway safety, is training an interdisciplinary lens on solving both local and national transportation issues.
M. Habib Rahman was awarded a Richard and Joanne Grigg Professorship. Rahman is an expert in bio-robotics, including human-assist robots, service robots, mobile robots, medical robots, rehabilitation robotics, and exoskeleton robots for rehabilitation and activities of daily living (ADL) assistance.
Yin Wang was awarded a Lawrence E. Sivak ’71 Professorship. Wang is developing advanced and sustainable materials and technologies for water purification applications that aim to rid water of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), pharmaceuticals, pesticides, heavy metals (e.g., lead) and metalloids (e.g., arsenic), and problematic oxyanions (e.g., nitrate, bromate).
Named fellowships:
Ryo Amano was awarded a Richard and Joanne Grigg Faculty Fellowship. Amano is contributing to research in energy and power areas, including wind, hydro, gas turbines and combustion. He directs Wisconsin’s only U.S. Department of Energy Industrial Assessment Center, which provides strategies to Wisconsin manufacturers and utilities to help them improve energy systems, reduce energy consumption, and enhance their plants’ decarbonization, cybersecurity and more.
Roshan D’Souza was awarded an Alan D. Kulwicki ’77 Faculty Fellowship. D’Souza’s work is advancing hemodynamics analysis of cardiovascular diseases through advanced processing of blood flow images from scans such as 4D Flow MRI using flow physics informed deep learning.
Konstantin Sobolev was awarded a Lawrence E. Sivak ’71 Faculty Fellowship. Sobolev’s research includes developing spray coatings that would both repel and sterilize virus-laden droplets, superhydrophobic and ice-phobic coatings for porous materials including concrete, and cost-saving, environmentally-friendly ways to make concrete stronger and longer-lasting.
Lingfeng Wang was awarded a Richard and Joanne Grigg Faculty Fellowship. Wang’s research could help public utilities optimize their strategies in planning and operating electrical energy systems; his research quantifies potential technical, economic and environmental implications under various scenarios.
All named professorships and fellowships provide flexible funds; named professorships provide a salary supplement.
The names behind the professorships and fellowships:
Richard and Joanne Grigg
Engineering alumnus Richard (Dick) Grigg (’04, ’75, ’70) devoted his career to advancing new energy technologies. After earning his BS and MS degrees in engineering from UWM, Dick went on to become the president and CEO of We Generation, the electric generation arm of We Energies. In 2004, he joined FirstEnergy Corp., an Akron, Ohio-based power company, where he retired as executive vice president and president of FirstEnergy Utilities in 2010. Dick and his wife, Joanne Grigg, died in 2018 and 2016, respectively. More.
Alan D. Kulwicki
In 1977, Alan D. Kulwicki graduated from UWM with a BS in mechanical engineering. He would apply this degree to his skill in racecar driving to achieve success on the track. Kulwicki was on the cutting edge of an increasing emphasis on technology in the sport. Despite his death in a plane crash in 1993, Kulwicki’s name and legacy live on, as he was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2019. More.
Lawrence E. Sivak
Larry Sivak earned his BS in civil engineering from UWM in 1971. He has held many key positions in civil engineering during his 40-year career and experienced many unique projects, including harbor maintenance and flood control with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and participating in the Milwaukee Water Pollution Abatement Program. More.