Conference Committee
Thalia Anagnos
Associate Vice President
Office of Graduate and Undergraduate Programs
Dr. Thalia Anagnos is the Associate Vice President of Graduate and Undergraduate Programs at San José State University. As an SJSU professor for 34 years, she has taught a range of courses in mechanics, statistics and probability, design, and technical writing. She is a civil engineer with a focus in earthquake engineering and has focused her research on regional losses from future earthquakes and the risk due to the collapse of older concrete buildings. She recently co-authored a sophomore level engineering textbook that is completely online and incorporates interactive technologies for presenting concepts and assessing student work.
Valerie Carr
Assistant Professor
Psychology
Valerie Carr is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at SJSU. As a cognitive neuroscientist, Valerie conducts interdisciplinary research involving the application of computer programming to creating experiments and analyzing data. She collaborated with faculty across several departments to help develop SJSU's new minor in Applied Computing for Behavioral and Social Sciences (ACBSS).This minor is designed to develop the programming skills of students in fields such as psychology and economics, equipping them to solve real-world problems in their chosen domains. Valerie currently teaches the first course in the ACBSS minor series, which covers the application of Python to current social science topics, as well as the use of programming in careers such as data analysis, user experience, and econometrics.
Winncy Du
Professor
Mechanical Engineering
Dr. Winncy Du is the director of Robotics Lab at SJSU. She received her PhD, two MS, and BS degrees from Georgia Tech, West Virginia University, and Jilin University, respectively. She is the sole author of one sensor textbook and co‐author of two sensor books. She has received many research grants and has published many journals and peer‐reviewed conference papers..
Magdalini Eirinaki
Associate Professor
Computer Engineering
Dr. Magdalini Eirinaki is an Associate Professor at the Computer Engineering Department of the College of Engineering at SJSU. Her research interests cover the areas of web mining and recommender systems and, in particular, on social network mining, aspect-based recommendations, interactive database exploration, social recommender systems and personalization. Most recently, as member of the SJSU Center of Smart Technology, Computing, and Complex Systems (STCCS), she has been involved in several smart city projects. She has published several papers in refereed journals and international conference proceedings in the above areas. Dr. Eirinaki received the SJSU distinguished faculty mentor award in 2015 and is the recipient of the 2017 Applied Materials Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Ayca Erdogan
Assistant Professor
Industrial and Systems Engineering
Dr. Erdogan is an Assistant Professor at San José State University Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. She received her PhD in Operations Research form North Carolina State University. Previously, she was a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at Stanford University, and visiting assistant professor at University of California. Her research interests are applications of statistical and operations research methods. She builds data-driven models and methods to optimize operations in service and production systems. She also works on building stochastic simulation models for disease progression to find optimal treatment scenarios that would guide public health policy.
Kathryn Gosselin
Assistant Professor
Mechanical Engineering
Dr. Kathryn Gosselin joined SJSU in the fall of 2015 as an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering. Her doctoral work at the University of Connecticut focused on developing novel optical diagnostic techniques for studying combustion, and her current research applies those same skills to the study of various technologies for sustainability, including natural ventilation, wind power, and air quality. Dr. Gosselin teaches courses in the thermo‐fluids area, and she is very interested in improving engineering education through student engagement and innovative, evidence‐based techniques.
Lili He
Professor
Electrical Engineering
Lili He is a professor at San Jose State University, Department of Electrical Engineering. Lili graduated from Nanjing University for BS in Semiconductor Physics. She received her Master and PhD in Electrical Engineering from State University of Buffalo. Her research area is mainly in semi-conductor device. Recent year, her research area is focused more in nano-electronics and solar cell and related systems.
Hyeran Jeon
Assistant Professor
Computer Engineering
Hyeran Jeon is an Assistant Professor at the Computer Engineering Department. Her research interests include reliable and energy efficient through-put processor design, software and hardware interaction, and emerging memory and storage systems design. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Southern California in 2015. She spent her summer at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center and the fall at AMD Research as a research intern in 2012. Before pursuing her Ph.D., she worked as a systems software engineer at Samsung Electronics, Korea from 2002 to 2009.
Younghee Park
Assistant Professor
Computer Engineering
Younghee Park is an assistant professor in Computer Engineering of San Jose State University. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from North Carolina State University in 2010. She has conducted a broad range of research in security areas, including SDN/NFV security and IoT security. She has two NSF grants related to Smart City and SDN/NFV. She has worked on four industry projects in SDN/NFV, supported by Arista Inc., Nexenta Inc., and VMware Inc. She is a coordinator for the Cybersecurity Certificates program supported by the NIETP. Since 2016, she has served as Center Executive at the Center for STCCS at SJSU, a multidisciplinary research center in the area of the Smart City. She obtained an award of excellence as a distinguished faculty mentor for the SJSU Student Research Competition in 2017. She received the College of Engineering Research Professor Award, as the Kordestani Endowed Chair from 2016 to 2017.
Minnie Patel
Professor
Industrial and Systems Engineering
Minnie H. Patel is a Professor in the Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering at San José State University. She has received Charles Davidson College of Engineering Applied Material’s award for teaching excellence in 2010 and ISE Department Newnan teaching excellence award in 2009. She has taught variety of courses at the undergraduate and graduate level in the areas of applied statistics, operations research and engineering economic analysis in the department as well as other academic institutions. Her research interests are in applied statistics and operations research applications. She has published numerous articles in these areas in a variety of refereed technical journals. She has also presented research papers in these areas at various national and international level conferences. She was the Chair of Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering Department at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee before joining San José State University in 2002.
Jinny Rhee
Associate Dean
College of Engineering
Dr. Jinny Rhee is currently the Associate Dean of the College of Engineering at SJSU. Her research interests include thermal management of electronics and renewable energy technologies, as well as engineering education and student success. She joined SJSU in 2002 as a professor of mechanical engineering. She received a PhD in mechanical engineering from Stanford University in 1995.
Blanca Sanchez-Cruz
Assistant Director of Student Support Programs
College of Engineering
After working in TRiO pre-college programs, providing support services to first-generation/low-income high school students in the San José community, for over 8 years, Ms. Sanchez-Cruz joined the College of Engineering at San José State University as the Assistant Director for Student Support Programs to support college efforts in areas of retention, graduation and inclusion, especially among underrepresented student populations. In this position, her many roles include: MESA Engineering Program Director, Silicon Valley WiE Conference Manager, college representative to campus-wide Chicanx/Latinx and African American Student Success Task Forces, Administrator of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering Scholarship (block) Grant, and Liaison to Engineering affiliated student organizations.
Ms. Sanchez-Cruz received a Masters of Arts Degree in International Service and Leadership (2008) from Roehampton (UK), BA in Global Studies (2005) and BS in Hospitality Management (2003) from San José State University.
Melinda Simon
Assistant Professor
Biomedical, Chemical, and Materials Engineering
Dr. Melinda Simon joined the department of Biomedical, Chemical, and Materials Engineering in Fall 2017, after postdoctoral fellowships at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Her research is focused on the use of microfluidics to conduct drug toxicity screening and to engineer tissues for regenerative medicine applications.
Birsen Sirkeci
Associate Professor
Electrical Engineering
Birsen Sirkeci is an associate professor in the department of Electrical Engineering at San José State University (SJSU). Prior to joining SJSU, she was a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley, CA. She received her Ph.D. from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY in 2006. Her research lies in the areas of wireless communications, sensor networks and statistical signal processing.
Xiao Su
Department Chair
Computer Engineering
Xiao Su is Professor and Chair of Computer Engineering Department at San José State University. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Professor Su conducts research in broad areas of software systems, computer networking, multimedia communications, network security, and cloud computing. She has actively involved students in her research projects and has supervised over 200 master project students. Professor Su has published over 60 articles in IEEE and ACM sponsored conferences and journals. She has been a principal or co-principal investigator in multiple grants, from NSF, NASA and IT industry. She was a recipient of Charles Davidson College of Engineering Applied Material’s award for teaching excellence in 2012, a recipient of Charles Davidson College of Engineering Faculty Award for excellence in scholarship in 2010, and a recipient of NSF CAREER award in 2006.
Miri VanHoven
Associate Professor
Biological Sciences
Dr. Miri VanHoven earned her PhD in Genetics from the University of California San Francisco in Dr. Cori Bargmann’s laboratory, and completed her postdoctoral research at Stanford University in Dr. Kang Shen’s laboratory studying neural circuit formation. She came to San José State University (SJSU) in 2008. Her teaching primarily focuses on genetics, neuroscience, and science communication. Her research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms that underlie critical steps in formation of the nervous system and she has been awarded research grants from the NSF and NIH. Dr. VanHoven collaborated with Dr. Sami Khuri, chair of the SJSU Department of Computer Science, to develop a Minor in Bioinformatics and now serves as the program’s advisor. She also collaborated with Dr. Sami Khuri and a multidisciplinary group to develop an MS in Bioinformatics. Dr. VanHoven will serve as a graduate coordinator for the program, and the first student cohort will begin in spring 2019.
Catherine Voss Plaxton
Director of Career Center
Catherine has led the SJSU Career Center team since 2016. She came to the Center with extensive experience in individual and organizational performance development in industry, non-profit, and education settings. Catherine's experience includes leading global talent-development and enterprise-IT program teams as well as teaching postsecondary business and counseling courses. She holds degrees in economics, HR/OD, counselor education, and is pursuing her doctorate in educational leadership.
Belle Wei
Guidry Chair of Education
College of Engineering
Dr. Belle Wei served as Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at California State University, Chico, and as the Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering’s Don Beall Dean of Engineering at San José State University (SJSU) for ten years. She is currently SJSU’s Carolyn Guidry Chair in Engineering Education and Innovative Learning.
Dr. Wei has been a champion for fostering inclusive excellence, bolstering STEM education, and broadening participation in computing by creating new interdisciplinary computing degree programs. She led the expansion of educational access for historically underrepresented groups, and the development of the Engineering Pathways to Success initiative that brings Project Lead the Way curricula to middle and high schools in the SF/Silicon Valley region.
Dr. Wei chaired the Engineering Deans Council’s Diversity Committee in 2009-2012, and spoke before U.S. Congress in 2006 on innovation, contributing to the 2007 America COMPETES Act.
Juzi Zhao
Assistant Professor
Electrical Engineering
Juzi Zhao joined SJSU as an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering. She holds a Ph.D. from The George Washington University. Prior to joining SJSU, Juzi worked as a postdoc researcher at University of Massachusetts Lowell and Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden). Her research area is networking.
TITLE SPONSOR
Mark and Carolyn Guidry
Women in Engineering Program Fund
CHAMPION SPONSOR
