Faculty recognized with named professorships, fellowships

A cluster of 11 head shots. Two are women. The rest are men.
Professorships are (clockwise from top left): Cuzner, D'Souza, Qin, Rahman, Slavens, and Sobolev. Fellows are (bottom row from left): Dabagh, Ma, Niu, Salowitz, and Wang.

Congratulations to the following faculty members, each of whom was honored with a named professorship or named fellowship for this academic year. The awards are backed by two donor funds – Richard and Joanne Grigg and Alan D. Kulwicki.

Through these gifts, the college is providing a fourth year of philanthropic support to faculty.

Named professorships and fellowships support the growth of some of the college’s key research areas and honor recipients’ research, teaching and scholarship. Named professorships, which are for a three-year period, provide a salary supplement, in addition to the funding award. Named fellowship awards are for one year.

Richard and Joanne Grigg Professors

Rob Cuzner, electrical engineering (renewed)
Roshan D’Souza, mechanical engineering (renewed)
Xiao Qin, civil & environmental engineering 
Md Habib Rahman, mechanical and biomedical engineering (renewed)
Brooke Slavens, mechanical and biomedical engineering (renewed)
Konstantin Sobolev, civil & environmental engineering 

Richard and Joanne Grigg Fellows

Mahsa Dabagh, biomedical engineering
Xiaoli Ma, civil & environmental engineering
Junjie Niu, industrial & manufacturing engineering
Yin Wang, civil & environmental engineering

Alan D. Kulwicki Faculty Fellow

Nathan Salowitz, mechanical engineering

The Donors

Richard and Joanne Grigg
After earning his degrees, the late Richard Grigg (’04, ’75, ’70 engineering) went on to become the president and CEO of We Generation, the electric-generation arm of We Energies. In 2004, he joined FirstEnergy Corp., in Ohio, and retired as executive vice president and president of FirstEnergy Utilities in 2010.

Alan D. Kulwicki
Kulwicki (’77, BS mechanical engineering) applied his degree to his skill in racecar driving to achieve success on the track. Despite his death in a plane crash in 1993, Kulwicki’s name and legacy live on. He was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2019.