Cal State L.A., College of ECST Associate Dean search.
Please refer below to view each candidates time and date for the "faculty and staff open forum".
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Dr. Rupa Purasinghe
Date & Time of Visit: Wednesday, April 29, 2015 | 3:00 – 3:55pm
Open Forum for Faculty & Staff Location: E&T A227
Dr. Rupa Purasinghe is the Chair of the Civil Engineering Department at California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA), and represents California at the ASCE National University Civil Engineering Department Heads Coordinating Council (DHCC). During his ten-year span as the Department Chair, Dr. Purasinghe fostered a diverse student body while doubling the enrollment. His distinguished awards include the California ASCE Faculty Advisor of the Year Award (2013) and the CSULA Outstanding Civil Engineering Professor of the Year Awards (2003, 2010). As the course coordinator and Department Chair, he pioneered industry partnership for the capstone design program, leading the program to two national awards (2010, 2011) from the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) for “Connecting Professional Practice and Education”. Recently he led the quarter to semester curriculum conversion activities for the civil engineering program working collaboratively with his College and University colleagues.
Dr. Purasinghe has exceled in the area of research and is credited for initiating and sustaining an externally funded earthquake engineering applied research program in partnership with major Universities and local industry. His department faculty has also been very successful in funded-applied research endeavors. His strong networking capabilities and industrial relationships have led to many student internship and career opportunities along with successful fundraising achievements.
Dr. Purasinghe received his Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University, Ohio, specializing in Structural Engineering and is a registered Professional Engineer in the States of California and Ohio.
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Dr. Benjamin Lee
Date & Time of Visit: Friday, May 1, 2015 | 11:05 – 12:00pm
Open Forum for Faculty & Staff Location: E&T A227
Dr. Benjamin Lee is a Professor and the Acting Associate Dean of the College of Engineering, Computer Science, and Technology at California State University, Los Angeles. He also is a Chair Professor of Wuhan University in China and a Fellow of Institute of Print-Media Professionals (IPP) in Hong Kong and an IDEAL Scholar of Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET). He earned his doctorate at University of Northern Iowa. He worked in the publishing industry as a managing director and a manager for eight years and taught at Central Michigan University and Eastern Michigan University for five years before he began teaching at California State University, Los Angeles.
Dr. Lee received the Education Award of Excellence from Printing Industries of America/Graphic Arts Technical Foundation in 2005, College Teacher of the Year Award from the Los Angeles County Industrial Technology Education Association in 2005, 2004-2005 Professor of the Year Award from the ECST Student Council, California State University, Los Angeles in 2005, the Exemplary Contributions Award from The National Association of Industrial Technology in 2004, the PIASC Educators of the Year 2003 Award from the Printing Industries Association of Southern California in 2003, Educator of the Year Award (one award recipient worldwide) from the Electronic Document Systems Foundation in 2002, the Outstanding Professor Award from The National Association of Industrial Technology in 2001, the International Man of the Year for 1997/1998 from International Biographical Center, Cambridge, England in 1998, has been included in the Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers, 2000 Outstanding People, 2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century, Outstanding People of the 20th Century, Who’s Who in Engineering Education, Dictionary of International Biography, and International Who’s Who of Intellectuals. To date, he has published nine books and 96 papers, major libraries such as the U.S. Congress Library, the Yale University Library, and the National Central Library of the Republic of China collect some of them; eight of those papers have been selected and published in the annual Selected Paper of the National Association of Industrial Technology. He served as the principal investigator for 89 grants and had acquired 15 equipment and major software donations. He has made 39 invited keynote speeches and 22 presentations at the national and international level, participated in international researches such as the Global Future Study, the Global Impact of JDF on the Graphic Communications Industry, and serves as a Round Table Scholar of Round Table Group.
Dr. Lee served as the President of the Graphic Communications Division of The National Association of Industrial Technology, a member of the Society of Industry Leaders of Standard & Poor’s Vista Research, An Advisory Board member of International Standards Authority, Inc. (ISA), A member of the Steering Committee for the Montebello Unified School District Superintendent's Planning Council for the Development of Multiple Pathways, a member of Montebello Unified School District Superintendent’s Executive Level New High School Design Team, the Co-Chair of the 2014 IAJC/ISAM, IEEE, & ASEE Joint International Conference’s Technology in Higher Education Division and Executive Board member, the Chair of the Keynote Sessions of The 1st & 2nd International Conferences on Graphic Communications, the Co-Chair of the Planning Committee of The 1st International Conference on Graphic Communications, the Consultant of the Hong Kong Printing Specifications (HKPS) project, an Advisory Panel member of eWEEK Magazine, an Academic Council member of Electronic Document Systems Foundation, an Advisory Board member of Application Development Trends Magazine, an Advisory Board member and guest editor of DOCUMENT Magazine, a member of the Los Angeles County Regional Occupational Program Advisory Committee, a Director of the Executive Board of The National Association of Industrial Technology, a reviewer for grant proposals for the California Governor’s Office on Service and Volunteerism, the Region Six Director of The National Association of Industrial Technology, a Judge of the Los Angeles County Fair Education EXPO, a member of the Advisory Committee of Inner-City Graphic Communications Academy and Pasadena Graphic Communications Academy, a reviewer for Grant Competition for the Office of Postsecondary Education, United States Department of Education, and a reviewer of Delmar Publishers Inc.
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Dr. Christopher Wenshen Pong
Date & Time of Visit: Wednesday, May 6, 2015 | 2:40 – 3:35pm
Open Forum for Faculty & Staff Location: E&T A226
Christopher W. Pong was appointed Director of the School of Engineering at San Francisco State University in 2009. This appointment followed a successful career as a structural engineering consultant and over ten years as a professor. He received degrees from State University of New York at Buffalo (Ph.D., ME) and National Chiao-Tung University in Taiwan (BS). He has served as a faculty advisor for the MESA Engineering Program since 1999. His passion to assist, attract and retain the underserved and underprivileged and female students in engineering is one of the main motivations for his pursuing innovative educational opportunities and grants. He is taking an active role in the School’s partnership with the Metro Academies Initiative (“Metro”) to launch the Metro Academy of Engineering in the fall of 2014. Metro is a curricular model currently being implemented at SFSU for low-income first time freshman. It has an impressive track record of increasing college completion among low-income, under-represented and first-generation students.
Over the years, Professor Pong has received several grants to provide opportunities for engineering students to successfully transition to SFSU. Throughout his academic career, he has fostered an environment that encourages the pursuit of STEM education and partnerships with K-14. He has lead an active collaboration with Cañada College to host the Summer Engineering Institute at SFSU, funded by Department of Education HSI-STEM and Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program grants. This highly praised summer program was developed to attract and recruit high school students from underrepresented groups. In another summer program, the NASA-CiPair Project, mainly Hispanic or female students community college students intern in our engineering faculty research labs and the NASA-Ames Center.
Since becoming Director, the School’s extramural funding has significantly increased while state funding has diminished. He has had a successful track record recruiting top-rated faculty and staff. As a result, two junior faculty won prestigious National Science Foundation’s Major Research Instrumentation (“NSF-MRI”) grants totaling $550K. The School has also been awarded over $6.0 million in grants and contracts funded by the NSF, Department of Energy, Department of Education, NASA and private companies since 2009. Overall, he has brought SFSU over $2.5 million in funding as a Principal Investigator.
Professor Pong has been active and productive in his research areas of structural and earthquake engineering. He has published over 90 journal and conference proceedings with his students and colleagues.
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Dr. Sean Monemi
Date & Time of Visit: Friday, May 8, 2015 | 2:25 – 3:15pm
Open Forum for Faculty & Staff Location: E&T A226
Dr. Sean Monemi is a Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Director of Center for Smart Grid at California State Polytechnic University (Cal Poly Pomona). He formerly served as the Department Chair, Associate Chair, and Graduate Program Coordinator. Prior to Cal Poly Pomona, he served as a faculty member, senior research associate and research scientist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Dr. Monemi has many years of industrial experience and practiced engineering profession as an electrical engineer for Litton Industries in Atlanta, Georgia. His professional experience includes working as a senior engineer and manager in one of the largest electric utility company, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA/NES) in Nashville, Tennessee.
Dr. Monemi’s research areas covers: Smart Grid, Renewable Energy, Model Integrated Computing, Diagnostics, and Fault Management Analysis in Power Systems. He has received several research grants to support his research work from: DOE, NSF, NASA, Microsoft, ETAP, SKM and JWEMC. He is a member of IEEE, ASEE, ASME, Tau Beta Pi, and Sigma Xi.
Dr. Monemi received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, and his B.S in Electrical Engineering from Alabama A&M University, Huntsville, Alabama.
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Dr. Gary Teng
Date & Time of Visit: Wednesday, May 13, 2015 | 3:00 – 3:55pm
Open Forum for Faculty & Staff Location: E&T A226
Dr. S. Gary Teng is Professor of Systems Engineering & Engineering Management and Director of Center for Lean Logistics and Engineered Systems at University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He holds B.E., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Industrial Engineering. Dr. Teng holds a Professional Engineer license in the State of Wisconsin and is an ASQ-certified Quality Engineer and Reliability Engineer.
In June 2012, Dr. Teng was awarded the highest award in the Engineering Management Division (EMD) of American Society for Engineering Education, the Bernard R. Sarchet Award, for his accomplishment and lifetime achievement in engineering management education. He also received the Merl Baker Award from EMD in 2009 for his exemplary service to the EMD.
Dr. Teng is very active in industrial engineering, engineering management, and systems engineering fields. For some of his activities, he started M.S. in Engineering Management Program at UNC Charlotte in 2000, established Center for Lean Logistics and Engineered Systems there in 2005, established B.S. in Systems Engineering program in 2008, and established online M.S. in Engineering Management program in 2009. The B.S. in Systems Engineering Program got ABET accreditation in 2012 under his leadership.
Dr. Teng was the director of the Engineering Management program and then Systems Engineering & Engineering Management program at UNC Charlotte between 2000 and 2012. In 2009, he was appointed by then North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue as a member of Governor’s Logistics Task Force and served on the Task Force for two and a half years under the leadership of the Task Force Chair, then Lt. Governor, Walter Dalton. The Task Force’s mission is to enhance North Carolina’s ability to move goods, people, and information efficiently and cost effectively.
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