Eight Auburn Engineering faculty members named to 2025 promotion, tenure list

Published: Apr 15, 2025 8:00 AM

By Joe McAdory

Auburn University Provost Vini Nathan announced the names of faculty awarded promotion, tenure or both for 2025. The following Auburn Engineering faculty received promotions or tenure:

Robert Ashurst, associate professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, has been promoted to professor. As professor and director of the college’s Design and Innovation Center (Makerspace), his research interests include micro- and nano-electromechanical systems design, fabrication and reliability, micro- and nano-tribology, molecularly thin film synthesis and design, novel thin film processing, surface science and semiconductor materials processing.

Davide Guzzetti, assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and a Ginn Faculty Achievement Fellow, has been promoted to associate professor with tenure. His research interests include astrodynamics, space mission design, machine learning, immersive computing and virtual reality.

Konstantinos Mykoniatis, assistant professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, has been promoted to associate professor with tenure. His research interests include modeling & simulation, Industry 4.0, robotics technology and virtual and augmented reality for training applications.

Joseph Ragan, lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been promoted to senior lecturer. His research interests include numerical simulation of physical systems, reverse osmosis desalination and kinematics of solid body impact.

Robert Pantazes, assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and a Ginn Faculty Achievement Fellow, has been promoted to associate professor with tenure. His research interests include computational protein design and engineering, protein-protein interfaces, disease diagnostics, pharmaceuticals and biomedical engineering.

Mark Schall, associate professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, has been promoted to professor. As director of the Center for Occupational Safety, Ergonomics, and Injury Prevention, his research interests include wearable technologies, exposure assessment, ergonomics, human factors, occupational health and safety and work-related musculoskeletal disorders.

Ehsan Taheri, assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering, has been promoted to associate professor with tenure. His research interests include optimal control, orbital mechanics and optimization.

Daniel Tauritz, associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, has been promoted to professor. Tauritz is the university’s director for national laboratory relationships. His research interests include artificial intelligence for national security, automated design of algorithms employing hyper-heuristics, computational game theory employing coevolutionary algorithms and evolutionary computation.

Media Contact: Joe McAdory, jem0040@auburn.edu, 334.844.3447