HEWSON ENGINEERING FACULTY FELLOWS
HEWSON FAMILY FOUNDATION GIFT PROPELS FACULTY RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION EFFORTS FOR THE LEE J. STYSLINGER JR. COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
As one of the first five universities in the nation to offer engineering instruction, The University of Alabama Lee J. Styslinger Jr. College of Engineering has long been a leader in engineering and computer science education. Today, more than 185 years after its founding, the College continues to see exponential growth in its student population and research activities. To sustain this growth, both the recruitment and retention of renowned faculty remain at the forefront of the College’s priorities.
In the spring of 2023, the Hewson Family Foundation bolstered the College’s efforts by pledging a $300,000 gift to establish the Hewson Engineering Faculty Fellows awards. Through the program, the College will award 20 faculty members over the next three years. In addition, the gift will also generate an opportunity to enhance retention efforts by recognizing exceptional work among existing faculty members and providing them resources to support their ongoing research.
College of Engineering. “As a result of their gift, we have the ability to be more nationally competitive in making job offers, which will allow us to attract the best and brightest new faculty and positively impact the future success of our College.”
New and existing faculty members who are selected as fellows of the program will receive a $5,000 stipend each year for three years, for a total of $15,000. Stipends will be used at the fellows’ discretion to support critical components of their role such as research activities and participation in conferences.
“Contributions like the Hewson Foundation’s enhance the College’s prestige as it recognizes and promotes excellent faculty work,” said Jenny Pyle, associate senior director of development for the Lee J. Styslinger Jr. College of Engineering. “This gift strategically supports the College by celebrating and supporting rising faculty stars who will both advance our research profile and also serve as inspiration and motivation to the students they educate in our classrooms.”
While the stipends will open the door to numerous career advancement opportunities for the award recipients, the Hewson family hopes the impact of the awards will extend far beyond the fellows and propel the overall advancement of the College.
“As a family, our giving through the Hewson Family Foundation is primarily focused on education because we believe it is transformative and empowering,” said Marillyn Hewson. “By donating to the UA College of Engineering, we hope to enhance the recruitment and retention of outstanding engineering faculty, as they are the cornerstone of a high-quality education. It’s clear that accomplished faculty bring cutting-edge knowledge, deep experience, and innovative research that will enhance students’ educational experiences and improve their job prospects. We hope our gift will extend and strengthen the impact of the College of Engineering for many years to come.”
The inaugural class of Hewson Engineering Faculty Fellows was selected in January 2024 and includes Dr. Bineet Ghosh, Dr. Sevgi Gurbuz, Dr. James Harris, Dr. Chongze Hu, Dr. Matthew Kasemer, Dr. Gregory Kubacki, Dr. Lina Pu and Dr. Zhongyang Wang.
2026 FELLOWS CLASS
Dr. Matthew Blair
Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering
Dr. Matthew Blair is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering. His research interests lie at the intersection of applied environmental microbiology and environmental engineered systems. Blair focuses on the development and application of advanced molecular techniques to explore and optimize underlying microbial dynamics present in engineered systems. This includes the study of microbial ecology, functional genomics and microbial contaminants like pathogens and antibiotic resistance. His current research focuses on “one water” environments, including drinking water and wastewater treatment, water reuse, water quality, biological filtration, and the protection of environmental source waters.
Dr. Sayanton Dibbo
Department of Computer Science
Dr. Sayanton Dibbo is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science. His research seeks to identify and systematically study adversarial and privacy threats to artificial intelligence and machine learning systems under a variety of simulations to develop defense tools and mitigate vulnerabilities. Dibbo studies the impact of security and privacy threats on various data modalities. His research has been presented at prominent conferences and published in journals by organizations such as USENIX Security, IEEE Computer Security Foundation, IEEE Secure and Trustworthy ML, IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, and European Conference on Computer Vision. Dibbo has also served as a reviewer and technical program committee member for several notable conferences and journals.
Dr. Lin Gao
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Dr. Lin Gao is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. His research focuses on fusion-based metal additive manufacturing, elucidating intricate relationships among processing, microstructure and material performance. Gao leverages synchrotron X-ray characterization techniques to study additive manufacturing processes operando, aiming to uncover the mechanisms behind highly dynamic phenomena. During his postdoctoral appointment in the Nuclear Science and Engineering Division at Argonne National Laboratory, Gao investigated additively manufactured materials for structural applications in nuclear reactors. His goal is to advance integrated material-process-product co-design for metal additive manufacturing.
Dr. Noorbakhsh Amiri Golilarz
Department of Computer Science
Dr. Noorbakhsh Amiri Golilarz is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and the director of the Bioinspired Robotics, AI, Imaging & Neurocognitive Systems Laboratory. His research interests involve artificial intelligence, deep learning, machine learning, computer vision, pattern recognition, robotics, cognitive neuroscience and image processing. Amiri has authored several papers on his research specialty areas and has also served as the lead guest editor and topic editor for multiple SCI-indexed journals. He serves as associate editor-in-chief for AI Letters, a double-bind-peer-reviewed journal he co-founded in 2024.
Dr. Zhiheng Lyu
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
Dr. Zhiheng Lyu is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. Her current research focuses on enhancing catalyst functionality and advancing technological viability of green chemical synthesis. Her work includes designing modular, multi-functional catalysts and developing a mechanistic understanding of their active sites and cooperative effects. Lyu uses operando imaging with product analysis to resolve structure-performance relationships of catalysts across multiple scales under reaction conditions. She also explores electrochemical synthesis of value-added organic compounds from small molecules. Lyu contributes to fundamental and applied research in catalysis, creating new synthetic pathways for diverse chemical products and fostering environmentally sustainable chemical processes.
Dr. Lusha Wang
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Dr. Lusha Wang is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Wang specializes in developing scalable and robust decision-making frameworks for power distribution systems by integrating physics-based modeling, large-scale optimization and data-driven learning. Her work spans applications in distribution system operation, transportation electrification and distributed renewable energy integration. Her research aims to enable intelligent, resilient and sustainable system operations. In 2025, Wang received the Best Paper Award at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Power & Energy Society general meeting.
Dr. C. Taber Wanstall
Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics
Dr. Taber Wanstall is an assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics. His research revolves around thermal-fluid sciences relevant to aerospace systems, including high-speed propulsion for air-breathing and rocket-based technologies, thermal management, non-ideal thermodynamics, and optical-based measurement techniques. His work integrates experimental and theoretical approaches, such as the development of novel, non-intrusive optical diagnostics for evaluating reacting and non-reacting flows.