2010-2011 WiSE Faculty
USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Biological Sciences (Molecular and Computational)
Biological Sciences (Neurobiology)
Biological Sciences (Human and Evolutionary Biology)
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
USC Dana and David Dornsife College
Biological Sciences, Marine Environmental Biology
Linda Dugay, Director, USC Sea Grant Program
Office: AHF 209
Phone: (213) 821-1335
Research Interests: Ctenophores, foraminfera, symbiotic associations, benthic ecology of dredge spoil sites, water quality, beach health and status. duguay@usc.edu
Suzanne Edmands, Associate Professor, Biological Sciences
Office: AHF 316
Phone: (213) 740-5548
Research Interests: Conservation, evolution, population genetics, breeding, genetic structure, marine populatons, copepod. sedmands@usc.edu
Katrina Edwards, Professor, Biological Sciences, Earth Sciences and Environmental Studies
Office: AHF 107
Phone: (213) 821-4390
Research Interests: Iron oxidation, subsurface biosphere, rock alteration, hydrothermal systems, chemoautotrophy, biofilms, endolithic. kje@usc.edu
Feixue Fu, Research Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences
Office: AHF 137
Phone: (213) 740-3188
Research Interests: N2 fixation, cyanobacteria, harmful alga bloom, global climate change, nutrient limitation. ffu@usc.edu
Julliette Hart, Research Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences
Office: AHF 253
Phone: (213) 740-1937
Research Interests: Coastal marine policy, regional ocean governance, and sustainable ecotourism. jahart@usc.edu
Karla Heidelberg, Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences
Office: AHF 232
Phone: (310) 510-4038
Research Interests: Marine and environmental microbiology and ecology; Protist diversity; Environmental genomics and other '-omic' applications to study microbial ecology. kheidelb@usc.edu
Myrna Jacobson, Research Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences
Office: AHF 139
Phone: (213) 740-5145
Research Interests: Biogeochemistry, Environmental EctoEnzymes, Nutrient imbalances, Communicating science through words and cartoons. myrnaj@wrigley.usc.edu
Astrid Schnetzer, Research Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences
Office: AHF 107
Phone: (213) 740-3675
Research Interests: Plankton food web dynamics, microbial ecology and biogeochemical cycling. astrids@usc.edu
Wiebke Ziebis, Associate Professor, Biological Sciences
Office: AHF 334
Phone: (213) 821-1198
Research Interests: Biogeochemistry and microbial ecology of the ocean floor. wziebis@usc.edu
Biological Sciences, Molecular & Computational Biology
Liang Chen, Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences
Office: RRI 416E
Phone: (213) 740-2143
Research Interests: mRNA alternative splicing, Microarray expression data analysis, High-throughput sequencing data analysis, Expression Quantitative Trait Loci (eQTL) mapping, Genetic linkage and association studies. liang.chen@usc.edu
Susan Forsburg, Professor, Biological Sciences
Office: RRI 104C
Phone: (213) 740-7342
Research Interests: Genome integrity, replication, recombination, chromosomes, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, fission yeast, genetics, model system, cell cycle, cancer, cell biology, molecular biology, MCM proteins. forsburg@usc.edu
Xuelin Wu, Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences
Office: RRI 304B
Phone: (213) 740-2165
Research Interests: Developmental biology, transcription regulation, plant stem cell regulation. xuelinwu@usc.edu
Xianghong "Jasmine" Zhou, Associate Professor, Biological Sciences and Computer Science
Office: RRI 403H
Phone: (213) 740-7055
xjzhou@usc.edu
Biological Sciences, Neurobiology
Sarah Bottjer, Professor, Biological Sciences and Psychology
Office: HNB 218
Phone: (213) 740-9183
Research Interests: Learning and memory, neural development and plasticity, vocal learning, electrophysiology, synaptic plasticity. bottjer@usc.edu
Samantha Butler, Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences
Office: HNB 202
Phone: (213) 821-1161
Research Interests: Spinal cord, developmental biology, molecular biology, neurobiology, axon guidance, neurons, roof plate mediated, chemorepellents,chemoattractants, central nervous system, genetics. butlersj@usc.edu
Judith Hirsch, Associate Professor, Biological Sciences
Office: HNB 328
Phone: (213) 821-2210
Research Interests: Early stage visual cortical processing. Specifically, how thalamocortical connections and circuits within the striate cortex itself resolve basic features of the visual scene. jhirsch@usc.edu
Emily Liman, Associate Professor, Biological Sciences
Office: HNB 301
Phone: (213) 821-1454
Research Interests: Sensory transduction, ion channels, pheromone, olfactory system, molecular neurobiology, TRP channel, taste, pain. liman@usc.edu
Biological Sciences, Human and Evolutionary Biology
Jill McNitt-Gray, Professor, Biological Sciences and Biomedical Engineering
Office: PED B9
Phone: (213) 740-7902
Research Interests: Mechanisms organisms use to control and distribute mechanical load during goal-directed multijoint movements involving external loading. mcnitt@rcf.usc.edu
Kathleen Costa Sand, Lecturer, Biological Sciences
Office: PED 107
Phone: (213) 740-2495
Research Interests: Lower extremity load distribution and power generation strategies used to control total body momentum during complex, multi-joint tasks involving impact. kcosta@usc.edu
Lorriane Turcotte, Associate Professor, Biological Sciences
Office: PED 107
Phone: (213) 740-8527
Research Interests: Hormones, fatty acids, muscle cells, skeletal muscle, obesity, insulin resistance, metabolism, signal transduction. turcotte@usc.edu
Chemistry
Rebecca Broyer, Lecturer, Chemistry
Office: SGM 102A
Phone: (213) 740-0620
Research Interests: Chemical education, curriculum development. rbroyer@usc.edu
Anna Krylov, Professor, Chemistry
Office: SSC 409
Phone: (213) 740-4929
Research Interests: Electronic structure methods and software, coupled-cluster and equation-of-motion methods, computational chemistry, radicals, opens shell and electronically excited species, spectroscopy, fluorescent proteins, DNA. krylov@usc.edu
Jessica Parr, Assistant Professor (Teaching), Chemistry
Office: SGM 304
Phone: (213) 740-6614
Research Interests: Chemical education, focusing on developing practical general chemistry laboratory experiments. parr@usc.edu
Hanna Reisler, Professor, Chemistry and Lloyd Armstrong Jr. Chair in Science and Engineering
Office: SSC 622
Phone: (213) 740-7071
Research Interests: Detailed mechanisms of chemical reactions in the gas and condensed phases by using laser and molecular beam techniques. reisler@usc.edu
Earth Sciences
Sarah Feakins, Assistant Professor, Earth Sciences
Office: ZHS 223F
Phone: (213) 740-7168
Research Interests: Compound-specific hydrogen and carbon isotopic analysis; Paleoclimate, Paleoenvironment, Paleoecology; Isotope Biogeochemistry; Organic Geochemistry. feakins@usc.edu
Meghan Miller, Assistant Professor, Earth Sciences
Office: ZHS 103
Phone: (213) 740-6308
Research Interests: Structural and observational seismology, tectonophysics, geodynamics, and plate tectonics. msmiller@usc.edu
Ellen Platzman, Research Associate Professor, Earth Sciences
Office: ZHS 125
Phone: (213) 740-1353
Research Interests: Paleomagnetically determined rotations in zones of continental deformation. platzman@usc.eduman
Maria Prokopenko, Research Assistant Professor, Earth Sciences
Office: SCI 117
Phone: (213) 740-5828
Research Interests: Biogeochemistry of aquatic ecosystems, isotope geochemistry, application of stable isotopes to identify and quantify biological processes in the environments. prokopen@usc.edu
Mandy Ward, Research Assistant Professor, Earth Sciences
Office: SHS 561
Phone: (213) 821-3033
Research Interests: Bacterial chemotaxis, dissimilatory metal-reduction, concentrated animal feeding operations, antibiotic resistance. mandywar@usc.edu
Mathematics
Sami Assaf, Assistant Professor, Mathematics
Research Interests: Combinatorics and its interrelation with Representation Theory and
Algebraic Geometry. sassaf@math.mit.edu
**Professor Assaf will begin at USC in Fall 2012.**
Susan Friedlander, Professor, Mathematics
Office: KAP 416D
Phone: (213) 821-2449
Research Interests: Partial differential equations that describe the motion of fluids. susanfri@usc.edu
Cymra Haskell, Lecturer, Mathematics
Office: KAP 120C
Phone: (213) 740-2460
Research Interests: Statistical properties of dynamical systems and modeling
of biological processes. chaskell@math.usc.edu
Andrea Jedwab, Lecturer, Mathematics
Office: KAP 258
Phone: (213) 740-2176
Research Interests: Hopf algebras and their representations. jedwab@usc.edu
Florence Lin, Lecturer, Mathematics
Office: KAP 266B
Phone: (213) 740-0559
Research Interests: Geometric mechanics, Hamiltonian dynamical systems, numerical analysis in molecular dynamics; the geometric phase & N-body systems.
fjlin@math.usc.edu
Susan Montgomery, Professor, Mathematics
Office: DRB 240
Phone: (213) 740-2419
Research Interests: Non-commutative algebras: in particular, Hopf algebras, their structure and representations, and their actions on other algebras. smontgom@math.usc.edu
Heather Russell, Assistant Professor Non-Tenure Track (NTT), Mathematics
Office: KAP104A
Phone: (213) 740-8170
Research Interests: Low-dimensional and geometric topology, Knot theory with a focus on categorified knot invariants, Diagrammatic algebra. hmrussellmath@gmail.com
Physics and Astronomy
Grace Lu, Associate Professor, Physics and Astronomy
Office: SSC 215B
Phone: (213) 821-4328
Research Interests: Nanoelectronics, mesoscopic physics, charge and spin transport in low dimensional systems. jialu@usc.edu
Gerrie Peters, Research Professor, Physics and Astronomy
Office: SSC 271
Phone: (213) 740-6336
Research Interests: Stellar Astrophysics, including Binary Stars, Stellar Abundances, Circumstellar Material About Hot Stars. gjpeters@mucen.usc.edu
Elena Pierpaoli, Professor, Physics and Astronomy
Office: SSC 371
Phone: (213) 740-1117
Research Interests: Cosmology, large scale strucutre, cosmic microwave background, early Universe, dark matter, data analysis. pierpaol@usc.edu
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Veronica Eliasson, Assistant Professor, Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Office: RRB 220
Phone: (213) 740-7182
Research Interests: Shock wave behavior in gases and liquids, shock wave focusing, fluid-solid interactions. eliasson@usc.edu
Andrea Hodge, Assistant Professor, Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and Philip and Cayley MacDonald Early Career Chair
Office: RTH 503
Phone: (213) 740-4225
Research Interests: Metallic materials, nanomechanics, nanocrystalline materials processing, high temperature mechanics, thin and thick film coatings. ahodge@usc.edu
Eva Kanso, Associate Professor, Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Office: RRB 214
Phone: (213) 740-5788
Research Interests: Mechanics, dynamical systems, fluid-structure interactions and aquatic locomotion. kanso@usc.edu
Megumi Kawasaki, Research Assistant Professor, Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Office: VHE 418
Phone: (213) 740-4342
Research Interests: Processing ultrafine-grained materials through severe plastic deformation, creep properties, tensile properties and the deformation mechanisms of ultrafine-grained materials. mkawasak@usc.edu
Biomedical Engineering
Eun Jin "Grace" Lee, Research Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Office: 140 Denny Research Center
Phone: (213) 821-2074
Research Interests: Neurobiological basis of sensory and neurodegenerative disorders. eunjinl@bmsrs.usc.edu
Jill McNitt-Gray, Professor, Biological Sciences and Biomedical Engineering
Office: PED B9
Phone: (213) 740-7902
Research Interests: Mechanisms organisms use to control and distribute mechanical load during goal-directed multijoint movements involving external loading.
mcnitt@rcf.usc.edu
Ellis Meng, Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Office: DRB 159
Phone: (213) 740-0343
Research Interests: BioMEMS, microfluidics, lab-on-a-chip, microsystem integration and packaging, world-to-chip interfacing, cell-to-chip interfacing, implantable biomedical microdevices. ellis.meng@usc.edu
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Andrea Armani, Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Electrical Engineering and Fluor Early Career Chair in Engineering
Office: VHE 712
Phone: (213)740-4428
Research Interests: Optical biological and chemical sensors, Integration of microfluidics. armani@usc.edu
Malancha Gupta, Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Office: HED 208
Phone: (213) 740-2067
Research Interests: Functional Polymer Films and Coatings, Chemical Vapor Deposition, Surface Modification and Patterning.malanchg@usc.edu
Kathy Shing, Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Office: HED 209
Phone: (213) 740-2068
Research Interests: Classical and statistical thermodynamics, Computer simulation, Fluid phase equilibria. shing@usc.edu
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Aggeliki Barberopoulou, Research Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering
Office: BHE B-12
Phone: (213) 740-5129
Research Interests: Earthquake Hazards, seismotectonics of Southern California, seismically generated water waves, tsunami hazards and mitigation, Tsunami modeling and inundation mapping for California. barberop@usc.edu
Burcin Becerik-Gerber, Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering
Office: KAP 224C
Phone: (213) 740-4383
Research Interests: Building Information and Construction Management, Information Management and Technology, Infrastructure and Urbanization, Sustainable Practices, Integrated Practice Management. becerik@usc.edu
Hanh Dam Le Griffin, Research Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering
Office: KAP 210
Phone: (213) 740-0603
Research Interests: Transportation Engineering Analysis, Transport Demand Forecasting (Transportation Modeling), Transportation Project Evaluation (Cost-Benefit Analysis). hdle@usc.edu
Sanja Ivanovic, Lecturer, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Phone: (213) 740-0603
Research Interests: Full scale testing of structures using small and large response amplitudes, structural health monitoring and model identification, spatial and temporal identification of earthquake damage. ivanovic@usc.edu
Katharine Moore, Research Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering
Phone: (213) 821-5960
Research Interests: Improvement of the physical and chemical characterization of ambient aerosol particles to better understand the role of aerosols in atmospheric processes from new particle formation to the role of fogs in the fate of atmospheric species. katharim@usc.edu
Amy Rechenmacher, Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering
Office: KAP 230C
Phone: (213) 740-3615
Research Interests: Granular material failure and flow, experimental imaging, strain localization, rate- and state-dependent response of fault gouge, experimental-numerical validation. arechenm@usc.edu
Jennifer Swift, Assistant Professor (Teaching), Spatial Sciences
Office: AHF B57D
Phone: (213) 740-5841
Research Interests: IS, internet Mapping, and database programming and design of information architectures for geotechnical engineering applications, including geologic and geotechnical borehole projects. jswift@usc.edu
Maria Todorovska, Research Professor, Civil Engineering
Office: Kaprielian Hall 216A
Phone: (213) 740-0616
Research Interests: Synthesizing knowledge and technology from Engineering, Earth Sciences, Applied Mathematics and Social Sciences, advanced problems in Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Mechanics. mtodorov@usc.edu
Computer Science
Claire Bono, Lecturer, Computer Science
Office: SAL 310
Phone: (213) 740-4510
Research Interests: Computer Science Education. bono@pollux.usc.edu
Ann Chervenak, Research Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Office: Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California, 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 1001, Marina del Rey, CA 90292-6601
Phone: (310) 448-8225
Research Interests: Issues of replicated data management and resource discovery in high performance distributed computing environments. annc@isi.edu
Ewa Deelman, Research Associate Professor, Computer Science
Office: ISI/USC, 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 1001, Marina del Rey, CA 90292
Phone: 310 448-8408
Research Interests: Distributed systems, cloud computing, scientific workflows, large-scale applications. deelman@isi.edu
Yolanda Gill, Research Professor, Computer Science
Office: ISI/USC, 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 1001, Marina del Rey, CA 90292
Phone: (310) 448-8794
Research Interests: Intelligent interfaces for knowledge capture, information analysis and assessment of trust, semantic annotation tools, agent and software choreography, and community-wide development of knowledge bases. gil@isi.edu
Leana Golubchik, Professor, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, WiSE Program Director
Office: SAL 226
Phone: (213) 740-4524
Research Interests: Internet-based computing, multimedia systems, and computer systems modeling and performance evaluation. leana@cs.usc.edu
Jijie Kim, Research Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Office: ISI/USC, 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 1001, Marina del Rey, CA 90292
Phone: (310) 448-8769
Research Interests: Intelligent technologies for teaching and learning. Online discourse analysis, forum and wiki mining, mixed-initiative interfaces, workflow systems, and interactive knowledge capture. jihie@isi.edu
Kristina Lerman, Research Associate Professor, Computer Science
Office: ISI/USC, 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 1001, Marina del Rey, CA 90292
Phone: (310) 448-8714
Research Interests: Applying network- and machine learning-based methods to problems in social computing. lerman@isi.edu
Yan Liu, Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Office: PHE336
Research Interests: Developing machine learning and data mining algorithms for solving problems involving structured data, time-series and spatial time-series data, and relational data. yanliu.cs@usc.edu
Maja Mataric, Professor, Computer Science, Neuroscience, and Pediatrics, Senior Associate Dean for Research
Office: RTH 407
Phone: (213) 740-4520
Research Interests: Human-machine interaction (in particular human-robot interaction, HRI), socially assistive robotics. mataric@usc.edu
Jelena Mirkovic, Research Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Office: USC Information Sciences Institute, 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 1001, Marina del Rey, CA 90292
Phone: (310) 448-9170
Research Interests: security, privacy, routing, quality of service and protocols, botnets, denial-of-service attacks, and IP spoofing. sunshine@isi.edu
Minlan Yu, Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Office: **Professor Yu will be joining USC in Fall 2012.**
Phone: TBA
Research Interests: data networking, distributed systems, cloud computing, data center networks, software-defined networks, network virtualization. minlanyu@eecs.berkeley.edu
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering
Urbashi Mitra, Professor, Electrical Engineering
Office: EEB 540
Phone: (213) 740-4667
Research Interests: Cognitive radio, sensor networks, acoustic communications, collaborative communication, sparse estimation methods, wireless body area sensing networks, and ultra-wideband communications. ubli@usc.edu
Mahta Moghaddam, Professor, Electrical Engineering
Office: **Professor Moghaddam will join USC in Spring 2012.**
Phone: TBA
Research Interests:Applied Electromagnetics, radar remote sensing, medical imaging, scattering from random media, inverse scattering, subsurface sensing and imaging. mmoghadd@eecs.umich.edu
Alice Parker, Professor, Electrical Engineering
Office: EEB 348
Phone: (213) 740-4476
Research Interests: Biomimetic Real-Time Cortex, neuromorphic circuits, bionanotechnology, artificial retina, carbon nanotube neural circuits. parker@eve.usc.edu
Michelle Povinelli, Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering and WiSE Jr. Gabilan Chair
Office: PHE 614
Phone: (213) 740-8682
Research Interests: Nanophotonics, photonic crystals, metamaterials, nano-optomechanics. povinell@usc.edu
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Elaine Chew, Associate Professor, Industrial and Systems Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Music
Office: GER 240 ***On Leave 2011/2012 Academic Year.***
Phone: (213) 821-2414
Research Interests: Computational music cognition: automated music analysis and visualization, expressive performance analysis and synthesis. echew@usc.edu
Dorit Hochbaum, Professor, Industrial and Systems Engineering, Daniel Epstein Chair
Phone: (213)740-6810
Research Interests: Discrete optimization, Algorithms' design and complexity, Coping with NP-hardness, Clustering, pattern recognition, data mining and image segmentation. hochbaum@usc.edu
Jo Ann Lane, Research Assistant Professor, Industrial and Systems Engineering
Phone: (858) 945-0099
Research Interests: SoS engineering cost models, SoS engineering process models, analysis of SoSE with respect to lean principles, SoS test and evaluation, and innovation in systems engineering. jolane@usc.edu
Shinyi Wu, Assistant Professor, Industrial and Systems Engineering
Phone: (213) 740-5073
Research Interests: Assessment of cost-effectiveness in the delivery of healthcare, prevention of injury and disease, and health promotion, redesign of processes for delivering healthcare to increase efficiency and value, integration of business strategies and clinical strategies to improve care for chronic illness. shinyiwu@usc.edu
- Women in Science and Engineering Program
- 3601 Watt Way - GFS 304
- Los Angeles, CA 90089-1695
- (213) 740-0996
- (213) 821-5252
- wiseprog@usc.edu