During the 2021-2022 academic year, the School of Computing and Information (SCI) conducted a rigorous faculty search and met with many esteemed colleagues and candidates. Now, the School is excited to announce six new faculty members that will continue SCI’s mission of supporting discovery, innovation and entrepreneurship driven by data and technology.
Please join us in welcoming the incoming faculty to the SCI community!
Frances Corry
Frances Corry accepted a position in the Department of Information Culture and Data Stewardship as an Assistant Professor. She is a PhD student at the University of Southern California. Her research asks how concepts of the past are shaped by technological change, and her dissertation examined social media sunsetting in this context. Franny will do a one-year postdoctoral fellowship before joining the department in Summer 2023.
Aakash Gautam
Aakash Gautam accepted a joint position in the Department of Information Culture and Data Stewardship and the Department of Computer Science as an Assistant Professor. Prior to coming to SCI, Aakash was an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at San Francisco State University. He completed his PhD in computer science from Virginia Tech in 2021. His research lies at the intersection of human-computer interaction (HCI), learning sciences, and community development. Aakash will join Pitt in Fall 2023.
Lorraine Li
Lorraine Li accepted a position in the Department of Computer Science as an Assistant Professor. Broadly, her research is in the area of artificial intelligence, and specifically, in commonsense knowledge reasoning. Lorraine will complete a one-year postdoctoral fellowship before joining the department in Fall 2023.
Jon Misurda
Jon Misurda accepted an appointment in the Department of Computer Science as a Teaching Assistant Professor. Jon is currently a faculty member at the University of Arizona, and he will be returning to the University of Pittsburgh, where he previously taught. Jon will join SCI in Fall 2022.
Angela Stewart
Angela Stewart accepted a joint appointment in the Department of Informatics and Networked Systems as an Assistant Professor and in the Learning Research and Development Center as a Research Scientist. Her research area is at the intersection of education, HCI, and AI. She graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder before completing her postdoctoral studies at the Human Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. Angela will join Pitt in Fall 2022.
Pengfei Zhou
Pengfei Zhou accepted the position of Assistant Professor in the Department of Informatics and Networked Systems. Prior to joining SCI, he was a Research Scientist in Advanced Digital Sciences Center (ADSC), Illinois at Singapore, a research fellow in NTU-Alibaba Joint Research Institute, Singapore, and a technical advisor for Alibaba Group. He received his BS degree in the Department of Automation, from Tsinghua University, and the PhD degree in the School of Computer Science and Engineering, from Nanyang Technological University. His research interests span the areas of mobile computing, large-scale systems, AIoT, 5G networking and applications. Pengfei will join Pitt in Fall 2022.