Four Auburn Engineering faculty members named Ginn Faculty Achievement Fellows

Published: Sep 3, 2024 9:00 AM

By Joe McAdory

Four Auburn Engineering junior faculty — Davide Guzzetti, Tin Nguyen, Sathya Aakur and Brendon Allen — were named Ginn Faculty Achievement Fellows, effective Aug. 16.

The Ginn Faculty Achievement Fellowship recognizes and rewards junior faculty in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering who receive prestigious young investigator awards, including the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER, Department of Defense, Department of Energy or National Institute of Health (NIH).

“Early career achievements in research are crucial as they lay the foundation for a lifetime of scholarly contributions and advancements,” said Mario Eden, dean of engineering. “By acknowledging and celebrating these accomplishments, we are fostering a culture of excellence and encouraging our faculty to push the boundaries of knowledge and make positive impacts on industry and society.

“Their work is already making significant impacts in their respective fields, and I am confident that their future contributions will further elevate our institution’s reputation as a leader in research, innovation and instruction.”

Guzzetti, assistant professor in aerospace engineering and director of the 3i Space Dynamics Laboratory, earned a NASA Early Career Faculty Award last spring for his project, “Metamaterials particles for orbital environment remediation,” which researches the feasibility of developing technology to deploy dust clouds to intercept small debris to reduce their altitude by inducing drag and eventually burn upon re-entering the atmosphere.

Nguyen, associate professor in computer science and software engineering and director of the Auburn University Bioinformatics Laboratory, earned a five-year, $490,039 NSF Early CAREER Award in 2022 for his study, “Integrative Pathway Analysis for Cancer Subtyping, Patient Stratification and Risk Prediction.” He is also part of two other NIH-funded research projects, “A web-based platform for robust single-cell analysis, bulk data deconvolution and system-level analysis,” and “Personalization of graphical models using multi-omics data for subtype discovery and prognosis."

Aakur, assistant professor in computer science and software engineering, earned a five-year, $514,186 NSF Early CAREER Award in 2022 for his study, “Towards Causal Multi-Modal Understanding with Event Partonomy and Active Perception.” This project engaged the broader scientific community using artificial intelligence and computer vision research to augment the future of workforce training.

Allen, assistant professor in mechanical engineering and director of the Controls, Autonomy and Rehabilitation Engineering Laboratory, recently received a five-year, $588,408 NSF Early CAREER Award for his research, “Deep Learning Based Control Approaches to Increase the Availability and Affordability of Personalized and Home-Based Rehabilitation.” Allen is also principal investigator on another NSF-funded ($518,696) project aimed at developing safe adaptive methods for controlling how much functional electrical stimulation and robotics assist during exercise.

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

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