Two ECE faculty awarded 2016 Dean's Early Career Fellowships

Five distinguished young faculty have been awarded the 2016 Dean’s Early Career Fellowships for groundbreaking work in their fields. This year’s awardees are Hakan Erdogmus (ECE), Soummya Kar (ECE), Carmel Majidi (MechE), Sheng Shen (MechE), and Paulina Jaramillo (EPP). These young faculty members have been granted these fellowships to provide funding to further their outstanding research.

The Dean’s Early Career Fellowships are awarded to untenured faculty members who have been nominated by their department heads and then selected to receive the fellowship after review and discussion of the nomination package by the College of Engineering's Review Committee.

Erdogmus, associate teaching professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University’s Silicon Valley Campus, has interests ranging from software engineering and empirical evaluation of software development methods, to software engineering economics and quantitative decision making in software engineering. He has published and lectured extensively in his areas of specialization.

Kar, assistant teaching professor in electrical and computer engineering, has interests spanning several aspects of stochastic adaptive control, decision-making, learning and inference in large-scale networked dynamical systems. Major technical thrust areas include stochastic analysis, distributed stochastic approximation, distributed algorithms, and large deviations. Application domains include power networks and smart energy systems.

Majidi, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering with a courtesy appointment in the Robotics Institute, runs the Soft Machines Lab. He combines tools and insights from microfabrication and solid mechanics to introduce new classes of elastically soft electronics, sensors, and actuators to function as building blocks for a new generation of wearable devices and robots.

Shen, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, runs the Nano Energy Laboratory. He investigates nanoscale thermal transport and energy conversion phenomena, and their applications in solar or thermal energy conversion, thermal management, and multifunctional materials.

Jaramillo, assistant professor of engineering and public policy, is involved in key multi-disciplinary research projects to better understand the social, economic, and environmental implications of policy-driven changes in the operation of the U.S. energy system. She has recently expanded the focus of her research to include issues related to energy access and development.

The College of Engineering is proud to grant fellowships to these outstanding members of the Carnegie Mellon University family and congratulates them on their achievements. The College will celebrate with the awardees at a ceremony to be held later this spring.