Three new faculty will join the College of Engineering and Computing for the 2021-2022 academic year. The new professors bring several years of teaching and research experience in computer science, artificial intelligence and electrical engineering.
Assistant professors Vignesh Narayanan and Christian O’Reilly will join the Computer Science and Engineering Department and the college’s Artificial Intelligence Institute (AIISC). Professor Adel Nasiri will be the newest faculty member of the Electrical Engineering Department.
Vignesh Narayanan – Computer Science and Engineering
Narayanan comes to the college after serving as a postdoctoral research associate at Washington University in St. Louis. As part of the applied mathematics lab, he participated in dynamical systems and learning, network inference, ensemble control, and data analytics for medical and health informatics. Narayanan was also involved with the brain dynamics and control research group, working on interpretable inference of neural dynamics, data-integrated learning, and control of neural spikes.
“I will be interacting with and teaching to the next generation leaders, entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists, and knowing this makes me excited,” Narayanan says. “As a core faculty member of the AIISC, I believe that there will be opportunities to be a part of and lead unique, impactful, interdisciplinary and translational research projects.”
Narayanan received a Bachelor of Technology degree in electrical and electronics engineering from SASTRA University in India, and a Master of Technology in control systems from National Institute of Technology in India. He earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Missouri University of Science and Technology, where he was a graduate research assistant.
Christian O’Reilly – Computer Science and Engineering
O’Reilly will begin working at the college after serving as a research associate at the Transforming Autism Care Consortium, Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University in Canada. He studied brain activity in context of neurodevelopmental disorders and EEG source reconstruction and functional connectivity.
From 2015 to 2018, O’Reilly worked as a postdoctoral researcher and was science lead for the thalamic microcircuit project at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. He was also a postdoctoral researcher at McGill University and Université de Montréal. Some of his research included brain imaging for autism in infants and biomedical sciences analysis of sleep EEG.
O’Reilly has served as an editor for Sleep Spindles & Cortical Up States since 2016. In 2020, he was named chair of the deep phenotyping committee for the Quebec 1,000 Families project.
“I am very enthusiastic about joining the ranks of the professors at the college. Their willingness to engage in cross-cutting issues align very naturally with my desire to develop novel and integrative approaches,” O’Reilly says. “I look forward to applying this multidisciplinary approach to my teaching and create neuroscience-oriented courses that can benefit from the complementary backgrounds of students in computer science, engineering, biological science, psychology and medicine.”
O’Reilly earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, and master’s and Ph.D. degrees in biomedical engineering from École Polytechnique de Montréal.
Adel Nasiri – Electrical Engineering
Nasiri worked for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee College of Engineering and Applied Sciences for the last 16 years. Most recently, he served as the Richard Grigg Jr. Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Electrical Energy Systems. Nasiri was also the site director for the National Science Foundation Center on Grid-connected Advanced Power Electronic Systems (GRAPES). He previously served as associate dean for research and interim executive director of the Connected Systems Institute.
Nasiri’s research interests including high power energy conversion, energy storage and microgrids. He holds five patent disclosures and has co-authored two books. Nasiri currently serves as chair of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Industry Applications Society (IAS) Committee on renewable and sustainable energy conversion. He is editor of Power Components and Systems, and associate editor of the International Journal of Power Electronics.
“I am looking forward to establishing a research and educational program focused on sustainable energy systems and hoping to ultimately expand the program into an interdisciplinary research and educational entity,” Nasiri says.
Nasiri received his bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronics engineering and master’s degree in electric power from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran. He earned his Ph.D. in power electronics from the Illinois University of Technology.