Eight faculty chosen as Willett Scholars

The College of Engineering has announced that eight faculty members have been named Donald Biggar Willett Scholars for 2013: Joanna Austin, aerospace engineering; Ximing Cai, civil and environmental engineering; Jianjun Cheng, materials science and engineering; Brian DeMarco, physics; Elizabeth Hsaio-Wecksler, mechanical science and engineering; Olgica Milenkovic, electrical and computer engineering; Angelia Nedich, industrial and enterprise systems engineering; and Chengxiang Zhai, computer science.

The recognition is targeted for faculty members who, at a relatively early stage in their careers, are excelling in their contributions to the University. The award represents a type of “junior professorship” to encourage continued achievement in outstanding young faculty.

Joanna Austin, who joined the Department of Aerospace Engineering in 2003, established the Compressible Fluid Mechanics (CFM) laboratory, and with the support of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, built the Hypervelocity Expansion Tube (HET) facility. Her research explores fundamental problems in fluid mechanics, particularly in reacting, compressible flows that occur in a broad range of applications: hypervelocity planetary entry, shock-driven bubble collapse, detonation and supersonic combustion, and high speed flow phenomena in geological applications such as explosive volcanic eruptions. Her research is predominantly experimental, combined with analytical modeling. Among her many honors, Austin was the recipient of a NSF CAREER Award (2010),Best Paper Award from the AIAA Fluid Dynamics Technical Committee (2009), and a Young Investigator Award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (2007).

Ximing Cai, the Ven Te Chow Faculty Scholar in Water Resources in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, joined the Illinois faculty in 2005. His research interests include large-scale system optimization, river basin planning and management, drought management, water resources economics and policy, geographic information system and spatial statistics, and international water resources development. Cai is a registered professional engineer (Maryland since 2002), and he is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, American Geographic Union, and International Water Resources Association.

Jianjun Cheng, who joined the faculty of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in 2005, is an affiliate with the  Department of Bioengineering, Department of Chemistry, the Beckman Institute, the Institute of Genomic Biology, and Micro- and Nanotechnology Laboratory. His research focuses on design, synthesis, characterization and evaluation of polymeric and nano-structured biomaterials for fundamental studies as well as their biomedical applications. Cheng is the recipient of a Prostate Cancer Foundation Competitive Award (2007), an NSF Career Award (2008), a Xerox Award for Faculty Research (2010), and a National Institute of Health Director’s New Innovator Award (2010). 

Brian DeMarco, joined the Department of Physics in August 2003. His research focuses on solving outstanding problems in condensed matter physics using ultra-cold atoms trapped in an optical lattice. Current research problems being tackled by his team include the properties of the disordered Bose-Hubbard model, thermometry in strongly correlated lattice systems, and thermopower in the Hubbard model. DeMarco's group was the first identify the cross-over between quantum tunneling and thermal activation of phase slips in an optical lattice (published in Nature) and the first to realize 3D Anderson localization of matter (published in Science). His group was also the first to trap atoms in a disordered optical lattice in a regime described by the disordered Bose-Hubbard model. DeMarco is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award, an ONR Young Investigator award, and a Sloan Foundation Fellowship.

A faculty member in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering since 2002, Elizabeth Hsaio-Wecksler, directs the Human Dynamics and Controls Laboratory and is interested in applying dynamic systems modeling, control theory, and movement analysis to explore issues related to musculoskeletal biomechanics. The focus of her research group is to investigate and improve movement control with specific interests in developing measurement tools and assistive devices to improve functional gait and balance. Most recently, her group has been funded to develop a portable powered ankle-foot orthosis for enhanced gait assistance in people with walking disabilities, and an automatic gear shifting transmission for manual wheelchairs to improve propulsion biomechanics and reduce shoulder loading. She was a Fellow at the University's Center for Advanced Study (2004 -2005), and the recipient of the Orthopedic Research Society and American Geriatrics Society New Investigator Recognition Award (1999).

Olgica Milenkovic, joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2007. Her research touches a number of different areas at the intersection of combinatorial mathematics, coding theory, bioinformatics, and social sciences. Her group is developing new coding and information theoretic tools for addressing problems as diverse as reverse engineering of gene-regulatory networks, computing cost-constrained genome reversal distances, compressed sensing DNA microarray design, and superimposed coding for genotyping. Milenkovic was recognized with a number of best paper awards, an NSF Career Award (2007), and a DARPA Young Faculty Award (2007). She is a CAS Associate at the University of Illinois for 2013.

Angelia Nedich joined the faculty of the Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering in 2006. Her general interest is in optimization including fundamental theory, models, algorithms, and applications. Her current research interest is focused on large scale convex optimization, distributed multi-agent optimization, and duality theory with applications in decentralized optimization. In fall 2012, she received two Navy grants for interdisciplinary projects with other College of Engineering researchers. Nedich has also received an NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award (2008) in Operations Research.

A faculty member in the Department of Computer Science, Chengxiang Zhai, also holds appointments in the Institute for Genomic Biology, Statistics, and Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Illinois. His research spans several related fields including information retrieval, natural language processing, machine learning, data mining, and bioinformatics. His primary research interest is developing techniques for managing and exploiting large amounts of text information, such as news articles, email messages, scientific literature, government documents, and all kinds of Web pages. Zhai was the recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE, 2004), a Sloan Research Fellowship Award (2008), ACM Distinguished Scientist (2009), and an NSF Career Award. In August 2012, Zhai won an HP Labs Innovation Research Program Awards to explore new methods for gathering and analyzing text-based opinion data.

The current Donald Biggar Willett Scholars in the College of Engineering at Illinois:

• Tarek Abdelzaher, CS
• Joanna Austin, AE
• Ximing Cai, CEE
• Ioannis Chasiotis, AE
• Jianjun Cheng, MatSE
• Brian DeMarco, Physics
• Elizabeth Hsaio-Wecksler, MechSE
• Olgica Milenkovic, ECE
• Angelia Nedich, ISE
• Matthias Grosse-Perdekamp, Physics
• Moonsub Shim, MatSE
• Chengxiang Zhai, CS

The Willett Research Initiatives in Engineering funds term professorships, undergraduate and graduate student research, and related research activity. It honors the memory of Donald Biggar Willett (1897-1981) who attended the University of Illinois from 1916-1921. Mr. Willett left the University before graduation, just a few credits short of completing his coursework in civil engineering. He started his career as a partner in the family business, Suburban Coal and Supply Company, and later, worked as a self-employed bookkeeper and tax preparer. In 1994, his widow, Elizabeth Marie Willett, willed her entire estate to the College of Engineering, which established the Willett Research Initiatives Fund. 
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