This story is published in YFile’s New Faces Feature Issue 2021, part one. Every September, YFile introduces and welcomes those joining the York University community, and those with new appointments. Watch for part two on Sept. 10.
The Lassonde School of Engineering welcomes five new faculty members this fall: Amirali Amirsoleimani, Alvine Boaye Belle, Konstantinos Derpanis, Jennifer Tsai and Larry Zhang.
“I am pleased to welcome five new faculty members to the Lassonde community this year,” said Jane Goodyer, dean, Lassonde School of Engineering. “As a school, we are committed to creating positive change for our students, our communities and the world around us, and our new faculty members will help propel us forward by educating our future engineers and scientists and pursuing impactful research. We value the different backgrounds and experiences that professors Amirsoleimani, Boaye Belle, Derpanis, Tsai and Zhang will bring as they support us in solving complex, real-world issues on a global scale.”
Amirali Amirsoleimani
Amirali Amirsoleimani is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Lassonde. He received his PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Windsor in December 2017 and completed his postdoctoral research fellowship at the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Toronto in July.
His current research interests include application-specific processing units, in-memory computing, neuromorphic hardware design and RRAM-based accelerators for artificial intelligence. He received the IEEE Larry K. Wilson Award in 2016. He was also the recipient of a best poster honourable mention at the 2017 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks in Alaska. He has been a guest editor of the Frontiers in Electronics and Frontiers in Nanotechnology journals and is serving as a reviewer for several electrical and computer engineering journals, including IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I (TCASI), TCAS II, TNANO, TVLSI, TED, Frontiers in Neuroscience, Microelectronics Journal and Neural Computing & Applications.
Alvine Boaye Belle
Alvine Boaye Belle is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Lassonde. She holds a PhD in software engineering from the University of Quebec (Ecole de Technologie Supérieure). She has completed a two-year industrial postdoctoral degree in software engineering at the University of Ottawa, under the supervision of Professor Timothy Lethbridge. After completing her postdoctoral degree, she worked for the federal public service while completing a graduate diploma in public administration and governance at McGill University.
Boaye Belle’s previous research focused on software maintenance and evolution, optimization, system assurance, artificial intelligence and machine learning. Her current research focuses on the assurance of intelligent software systems throughout their lifecycle. Outside of academia, Boaye Belle is a mother, she speaks both French and English, is passionate about poetry and has won several contests with her work.
Konstantinos Derpanis
Konstantinos “Kosta” Derpanis joins Lassonde as an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He received a BSc Hons. in computer science from the University of Toronto in 2000, an MSc in computer science (supervised by Professor John Tsotsos and Professor Richard Wildes) from York University in 2003 and a PhD in computer science (supervised by Prof. Wildes) from York in 2010.
For his dissertation work, Derpanis received the Canadian Image Processing and Pattern Recognition Society 2010 Doctoral Dissertation Award honourable mention. Subsequently, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the GRASP Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2012, he joined the Department of Computer Science at Ryerson University as an associate professor.
Derpanis currently serves as an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence journal. This year, he is also serving as an area Chair for AAAI 2021, ICRA 2021, CVPR 2021 and ICCV 2021. His main research field of interest is computer vision, with an emphasis on motion analysis and human motion understanding and related aspects in image processing and machine learning.
Jennifer Tsai
Jennifer Tsai joins Lassonde as a sessional assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Space Science and Engineering. She holds a PhD in mechanical engineering from McMaster University, an MSc in aerospace engineering from the University of Washington and a BSc in aerospace engineering from National Chung Kung University in Taiwan.
Tsai’s research background includes waterjet dissector design, emission of pulsed combustion and elastomeric material design. She has experience in computational fluid dynamics, material modelling and machine learning, and several years of industrial experience as a computational analysis engineer. Her current research interests include fluid-structure interactions, micro aerial vehicles under harsh environments, energy harvesting and open educational resources.
Larry Zhang
Larry Yueli Zhang is an assistant professor in the teaching stream in Lassonde’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. His teaching and research interests include data structures, algorithms, computer organization, operating systems, computer networks, distributed systems, social network analysis and computing education.
Prior to joining York University, Zhang completed his PhD in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto and served as a teaching faculty member in the Department of Mathematical and Computational Sciences at the University of Toronto Mississauga.