Meet Our New Faculty

Mason Earles Assistant Professor and Assistant Agricultural Engineer, Biological and Agricultural Engineering Earles brings expertise in artificial intelligence (AI) to agriculture by developing algorithms to help farmers better and more efficiently grow, treat and harvest their crops. His goal is to create agriculturespecific AI systems that can be easily and cheaply deployed in the field. An alumnus of UC Davis, he received his Ph.D. from the Department of Plant Sciences and has an appointment in the Department of Viticulture and Enology.

Matthew Ellis Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering Ellis is a systems engineer who specializes in model predictive control for applications in industry. He joined UC Davis after four years at an energy systems company. He received his Ph.D. in chemical and biomolecular engineering at UCLA, where he won the Outstanding Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering Award in 2016.

Houman Homayoun Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering Homayoun is an expert in hardware security, data-intensive computing and heterogeneous computing and has conducted research in big data computing and hardware accelerator design. He previously worked at George Mason University. He received his Ph.D. in computer science and engineering at UC Irvine and did two years of postdoctoral work at UC San Diego.

Seung Sae Hong Assistant Professor, Materials Science and Engineering Hong’s research focuses on low-dimensional materials, with the goal of creating new materials that allow extreme straining and shape deformation in 3-D. He received his Ph.D. and completed his postdoctoral work in applied physics at Stanford University before joining UC Davis. He received the Graduate Student Award Gold Medal from the Materials Research Society in 2012.

Marina Leite Associate Professor, Materials Science and Engineering Leite looks at materials for harvesting and storing energy, imaging materials at the nanoscale and photonics. She received her Ph.D. in physics from the University of Campinas in Brazil and had been part of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics at the University of Maryland before joining UC Davis.

Harishankar Manikantan Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering Manikantan studies fluid mechanics, soft matter and complex fluids with a multidisciplinary background. He received his Ph.D. in applied mechanics from UC San Diego and was a postdoctoral scholar at UC Santa Barbara before joining UC Davis. He received the James O. Smith Award for outstanding teaching as a teaching assistant while earning his master’s degree at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

The College of Engineering welcomed 11 new faculty members this academic year. Our new faculty have expertise ranging from hardware security to assistive robotics to materials under extreme conditions.

Scott McCormack Assistant Professor, Materials Science and Engineering McCormack studies materials under extreme conditions for use in space exploration using calorimetry, crystallography and computation. He received his Ph.D. in materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign just a few weeks before joining UC Davis.

Jeremy Munday Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering Munday studies the optics of alternative energy, focusing on nanoscale and quantum phenomena. He joins UC Davis after eight years with the University of Maryland. He received his Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University in 2008 and received the NASA Early Career Faculty Space Technology Research Award in 2012.

Jasquelin Peña Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering Peña studies the interactions between metals, microbes and minerals, which are critical to the functioning of earth and environmental systems. She received her Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering from UC Berkeley and had been a faculty member at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland since 2011.

Randy O’Reilly Professor, Computer Science O’Reilly, who has a dual appointment with the Center for Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology, uses computers to model the brain and understand how it works. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from Carnegie Mellon University and had been a faculty member at the University of Colorado, Boulder since 1997. He received CU Boulder’s College Scholar Award in 2009 and is a Society of Experimental Psychologists Fellow.

Jonathon Schofield Assistant Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Schofield works at the interface between humans and robotics to enhance cooperation between humans and advanced assistive devices, such as prosthetics. He received his Ph.D. in biomedical/mechanical engineering at the University of Alberta and was working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute before coming to UC Davis.