New faculty (fall 2017)
This fall, we are proud to have welcomed these five excellent individuals to our community: Sepehr Amir-Mohammadian, Fadi Muheidat, Dana Nehoran, Prasad Saripalli and Shon Vick.
Sepehr Amir-Mohammadian
Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Cybersecurity
A recent graduate of the University of Vermont, Sepehr's research interest lies in networking and cybersecurity with a focus on programming languages techniques to provide formal software security assurance. He is collaborating closely with Drs. Shafer and El Kari in our newly implemented Cybersecurity program. In his spare time, Sepehr enjoys spending the time in the outdoors - hiking, biking, swimming and paddle-boarding. He also enjoys listening to tech podcasts and reading books on logic, cyberspace and technology.
"My engagement with information security as a general topic of my research has helped me to analyze and evaluate programs and systems more critically. Whether it is the failure to perform proper boundary checks on program data that leads to a buffer overflow vulnerability, or a race condition that ends in a privilege escalation, or flawed design or deployment of a network protocol that could be exploited for denial of service attacks, I tend to investigate potential vulnerabilities and further amelioration. I would like to communicate this sensitivity when I teach different topics in computer science, for the sake of more robust, safe and secure design and deployment of systems."
Fadi Muheidat
Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Fadi comes to us from University of Missouri, Columbia where he received his PhD in electrical and computer engineering. His main research interests are eldercare technology, internet of things, sensor data analysis and patient-reported outcomes. He hopes to build a component of an automated health monitoring system to enable independent living for elderly people and provide a practical smart home environment that improves quality of life, reducing healthcare costs and promoting independence. In his spare time, he enjoys playing soccer, reading, watching TV and taking walks with his wife and kids.
"I am always motivated by seeing the impacts of my work on my students and colleagues. I am very excited to be a member of the School of Engineering and Computer Science and very motivated to keep up the good standing of the program."
Dana Nehoran
Lecturer, Computer Science and Data Science
Dana earned her master's degree in analytics from University of San Francisco, and brings a strong background in management of data-driven engineering programs and higher education analytics. She has held senior management and consulting positions with Fortune 500 companies, such as Intel and Cisco, and has taught classes in data science and computer science at various institutions, most recently at San Jose State University. In her free time, she likes reading historical fiction and hiking with her family and beautiful golden retriever.
"I have always strongly believed in the potential of collaboration between the academic world and the related industries, and have contributed to such partnerships from both sides. I hope I get the chance to continue that here, in addition to enhancing Student Success with advanced analytics and decision sciences."
Prasad Saripalli
Professor of Practice, Data Science
Prasad has an MS in Computer Science from Washington State, PhD training separately in engineering and computer Science from University of Florida and post-doctoral training from University of Texas Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences. He currently serves as VP of Data Science at Edifecs, an industry premier health care data interchange and analytics software vendor. He is a Professor of Practice teaching Machine Learning and Computer Science curricula at various universities and advising researchers to invent, patent and publish work in ML and SaaS applications.
"I am looking forward to teaching effective Machine Learning, AI and Computer Science courses which help the students blossom into successful practitioners and researchers, and build Pacific's Data Science program as one of the world's finest."
Shon Vick
Lecturer, Computer Science and Data Science
The Computer Science and Data Science programs welcome Shon Vick who brings with him over thirty years of data and computer science expertise and application. This fall, Shon is teaching ENG 019: Numerical Analysis for Engineers and COMP 47: Discrete Structures in the Computer Science department. He has enjoyed interacting with various engineering and computer science students in the school. Shon is also working on a draft for an introductory computer science textbook geared for engineering and computer science students as well as scientists.
"I'm pleased to be at Pacific where it's easy and common to combine the best parts of a liberal arts and engineering education. The diverse student body and exposure to the liberal arts prepare many students for a successful engineering career. I am looking forward to teaching motivated students at Pacific in the spring and beyond."
