CENSAI faculty represent a large swath of Penn State’s diversity of researchers, coming from nine colleges, twenty-one departments, and two campuses.
Faculty

Sarah Assmann
- Waller Professor of Biology
Department: Department of Biology
Email: sma3@psu.edu
Research Focuses: Cell signaling, RNA structure-function relationships, natural variation in plant abiotic stress responses, CRISPR approaches to crop improvement, plant biology
Website: Visit Sarah's Website

Philip Bevilacqua
- Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Email: pcb5@psu.edu
Research Focuses: Biological, Physical, and Biophysical Sciences; Bio Structure/Function; Chemical Biology; Enzymology
Website: Visit Philip's Website

Gerd Brunner
- Associate Professor of Medicine
Email: gerdbrunner@psu.edu
Website: Visit Gerd's Website

Orfeu Buxton
- Professor of Biobehavioral Health
- ICDS Associate
Department: Biobehavioral Health
Office: 206 Biobehavioral Health Building, University Park
Email: omb104@psu.edu
Phone: 814-867-5707
Research Focuses: Causes of sleep deficiency, health consequences of sleep deficiency, biomarkers
Website: Visit Orfeu's Website

Long-Qing Chen
- Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
- ICDS Affiliate
Department: Materials Science and Engineering
Office: 102 Steidle Building, University Park
Email: lqc3@psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-8101
Research Focuses: Computational materials science at the mesoscale; phase-field method for materials microstructure evolution and materials design; thermodynamics and kinetics of phase transitions, domain structures and electrical/mechanical/magnetic couplings in nanoferroelectrics and multiferroics; alloy phase transformations, including order-disorder, phase separation, and martensitic transformations; grain growth in thin films and bulk systems; precipitate morphologies; Ostwald ripening; interactions between defect and phase microstructures; multiscale modeling; computational materials design
Website: Visit Long-Qing's Website

Keith Cheng
- Distinguished Professor of Pathology, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Pharmacology
- ICDS Co-Hire
Department: Pathology
Office: Room C7866A, Penn State Hershey College of Medicine
Email: kcheng@psu.edu
Phone: 717-531-5635
Research Focuses: Cancer genetics, genomic instability, cell differentiation, genetics of human pigmentation, web-based zebrafish atlas, image informatics, SNP database analysis
Website: Visit Keith's Website

Guangqing Chi
- Professor of Rural Sociology and Demography and Public Health Sciences
- ICDS Associate
Department: Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education
Office: 112E Armsby Building, University Park
Email: gchi@psu.edu
Phone: 814-63-8245
Research Focuses: Climate change, land use, and community resilience; critical infrastructure/transportation, population change, and population health within the smart cities framework; computational and spatial analysis; spatial demography
Website: Visit Guangqing's Website

Vernon Chinchilli
- Distinguished Professor and Chair, Department of Public Health Sciences
Email: vchinchi@psu.edu
Website: Visit Vernon's Website

Michele Diaz
- Director of Human Imaging at the Social, Life, and Engineering Sciences, Imaging Center
- Professor of Psychology, Linguistics, & Neuroscience
Email: mtd143@psu.edu
Research Focuses: relations between the brain and behavior, semantic and phonological aspects of language comprehension and production, age-related differences in language
Website: Visit Michele's Website

Ethan Fang
- Assistant Professor of Statistics
Email: xxf13@psu.edu
Research Focuses: Machine learning
Website: Visit Ethan's Website

C. Lee Giles
- Professor of Computer Science and Engineering
- Professor of Supply Chain and Information Systems
- Professor of Information Sciences and Technology
- ICDS Associate
Department: College of Information Sciences and Technology
Office: 311A IST Building, University Park
Email: giles@ist.psu.edu
Phone: 814-865-7884
Research Focuses: Information retrieval, knowledge extraction and management, and data mining, both for large and small data and information resources
Website: Visit C. Lee's Website

Santhosh Girirajan
- Associate Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
- Associate Professor of Anthropology
Email: sxg47@psu.edu
Research Focuses: Neurobiology, genetics of neurodevelopmental disorders
Website: Visit Santhosh's Website

Corina Graif
- Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminology
- Research Associate, Population Research Institute
Email: corina.graif@psu.edu
Research Focuses: Communities and Crime, Neighborhood Effects on Health, Spatial Stratification and Mobility
Website: Visit Corina's Website

Molly Hall
- Assistant Professor of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences
- ICDS Associate
Department: Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences
Office: 512A Wartik Lab
Email: mah546@psu.edu
Phone: 814-865-0794
Research Focuses: Genomics, Human Genetics, Exposome, Genetic Interactions (Epistasis), Gene-Environment Interactions, Complex Disease, Precision Medicine, Biomedical Informatics, Metabolomics
Website: Visit Molly's Website

Frank Hillary
- Associate Head, Department of Psychology
- Professor of Psychology
Email: fgh3@psu.edu
Research Focuses: In my lab we use behavioral, brain imaging, and genetic measurements to understand patient outcome in severe neurotrauma. We incorporate network neuroscience approaches including structural and functional connectomics to understand the affects of injury and aging on neural system plasticity over the life span. Also, as part of an international consortium for data sharing and team science (see ENIGMA) our work focuses on large scale data sharing and harmonization and open science.
Website: Visit Frank's Website

Vasant Honavar
- Professor and Edward Frymoyer Chair of Information Sciences and Technology
- Associate Director, Institute for Computational and Data Sciences
- ICDS Co-Hire
Department: Information Sciences and Technology
Office: E335 Westgate Building, University Park
Email: vuh14@psu.edu
Phone: 814-865-3141
Research Focuses: Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, data sciences, knowledge representation, causal inference, AI for science, bioinformatics and computational molecular and systems biology, biomedical and health informatics, materials informatics, applied information integration and informatics
Website: Visit Vasant's Website

Daning Huang
- Assistant Professor
Department: Aerospace Engineering
Email: daning@psu.edu
Research Focuses: Computational and Experimental Fluid Dynamics; Structural Dynamics and Adaptive Structures; Vehicle Systems Engineering
Website: Visit Daning's Website

Sharon Huang
- Associate Professor of Information Sciences and Technology
- ICDS Associate
Office: E317 Westgate Building
Email: suh972@ist.psu.edu
Phone: (814) 863-7235
Research Focuses: Her research interests are in the areas of biomedical image analysis, computer vision, and machine learning, focusing on methods for object recognition, image segmentation, image synthesis, registration/matching, tracking, skeletonization, computer-assisted diagnosis and intervention. Her broader interests include computer graphics, artificial intelligence, data mining, biomedical informatics, HCI, and visualization.
Website: Visit Sharon's Website

Mahmut Kandemir
- Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Engineering
- Director of Graduate Affairs
- Associate Director, Institute for Computational and Data Sciences
- ICDS Co-Hire
Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Office: 354C Information Science and Technology Building, University Park
Email: kandemir@cse.psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-4888
Research Focuses: Embedded systems, programming languages, compilers, power-aware computing, dependable computing, input/output systems
Website: Visit Mahmut's Website

Soundar Kumara
- Allen E. Pearce and Allen M. Pearce Professor of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
- Professor of Information Sciences & Technology (Affiliate)
- Consultant Army Science Board (ASB)
- Director, Center for the Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to Industry (AIMI)
- ICDS Co-Hire
Department: Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering
Office: 222 Leonard Building, University Park
Email: skumara@psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-2359
Research Focuses: AI for Manufacturing, AI for Health, Sensor- Based Process Monitoring, Edge Computing and Human-Centered Manufacturing and Healthcare, Community Detection in Large Networks, and AI for Governance.
Website: Visit Soundar's Website

Robert Lennon
- Associate Professor, Department of Family and Community Medicine
- Affiliate Faculty, Penn State Law
Email: rkl5319@psu.edu
Research Focuses: Messaging efficacy during pandemics, osteopathic manipulative therapies for the treatment of chronic migraine, using folate derivatives to reduce oxidative stress in living tissue, therapies to reduce opioid use in persons with chronic pain and bioethics
Website: Visit Robert's Website

Runze Li
- Verne M. Willaman Professor of Statistics
- Professor of Public Health
- ICDS Associate
Department: Statistics
Office: 413 Thomas Building, University Park
Email: ril4@psu.edu
Phone: 814-865-1555
Research Focuses: High dimensional statistical modeling and algorithms for high dimensional/volume data
Website: Visit Runze's Website

Mehrdad Mahdavi
- Assistant Professor
- Dorothy Quiggle Career Development Assistant Professor of Computer Science & Engineering
- ICDS Affiliate
Department: Computer Science and Education
Email: mahdavi@cse.psu.edu
Research Focuses: Computational and statistical machine learning, and design and analysis of randomized algorithms with a focus on Large-scale machine learning, Statistical learning theory, adversarial learning theory, convex and non-convex optimization and computational learning theory, distributed optimization and applications of machine learning.
Website: Visit Mehrdad's Website

Shaun Mahony
- Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
- ICDS Associate
Department: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Office: 404 South Frear Laboratory, University Park
Email: sam77@psu.edu
Phone: 814-865-3008
Research Focuses: Computational biology, machine learning approaches for understanding gene regulation
Website: Visit Shaun's Website

Edward O’Brien
- Associate Professor of Chemistry
- ICDS Co-Hire
Department: Chemistry
Office: 402 Chemistry Building, University Park
Email: epo2@psu.edu
Phone: 814-867-5100
Research Focuses: Ribosome-associated protein folding, macromolecular self-assembly and chaperone interactions in living cells
Website: Visit Edward's Website

Shashank Priya
- Associate Vice President for Research
- Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
Email: sup103@psu.edu
Research Focuses: Bio-inspired Materials, Energy Harvesting, Multi-functional Materials, Wireless Power Transfer
Website: Visit Shashank's Website

Sarah Rajtmajer
- Assistant Professor of Information Sciences and Technology
- ICDS Associate
Department: Information Sciences and Technology
Office: E351 Westgate Building
Email: smr48@psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-2554
Research Focuses: Machine Learning, Network Science, Game Theory, Privacy and Security
Website: Visit Sarah's Website

Matthew Reimherr
- Associate Professor of Statistics
Department: Department of Statistics
Email: mlr36@psu.edu
Research Focuses: Functional Data Analysis, Longitudinal Data Analysis, Statistical Genetics, Data Privacy
Website: Visit Matthew's Website

Wes Reinhart
- Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
- ICDS Co-Hire
Department: Materials Science and Engineering
Office: 303 Steidle Building
Email: reinhart@psu.edu
Research Focuses: Data-driven design of materials, including polymers, metal alloys, structural materials, and more. We design machine learning models for sparse and noisy datasets encountered in practical materials design settings. We also leverage generative models to rapidly design new materials and experiments.
Website: Visit Wes's Website

Justin Silverman
- Assistant Professor of Information Sciences and Technology
- ICDS Co-Hire
Email: Justin.Silverman@psu.edu
Research Focuses: Justin's work focuses on longitudinal modeling and experimental design of host-associated microbiota surveys.
Website: Visit Justin's Website

Aleksandra Slavkovic
- Professor of Statistics
- ICDS Associate
Department: Statistics
Office: 412 Thomas Building, University Park
Email: sesa@psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-4918
Research Focuses: Usability evaluation methods, human performance in virtual environments, statistical data mining, application of statistics to social sciences, algebraic statistics, and statistical approaches to confidentiality and data disclosure
Website: Visit Aleksandra's Website

Martin Sliwinski
- Director, Center for Healthy Aging
- Professor of Human Development and Family Studies
Department: Human Development and Family Studies
Email: mjs56@psu.edu
Research Focuses: Aging and health, cognition, dementia risk, stress, and emotion regulation
Website: Visit Martin's Website

Hyebin Song
- Assistant Professor of Statistics
Department: Statistics
Email: hps5320@psu.edu
Research Focuses: Statistical Learning, High-dimensional Statistics, Statistical Computing
Website: Visit Hyebin's Website

José Soto
- Associate Professor of Psychology
Email: jas95@psu.edu
Research Focuses: My research focuses on understanding the intersections of culture, health, and emotion, especially as it relates to the creation and maintenance of disparities in health, well-being, and other markers of social inequality. I am also interested in those factors that promote or inhibit engagement with social justice matters and the creation of diverse, equitable and inclusive spaces in academia and the community.
Website: Visit José's Website

Wen-Jan Tuan
- Assistant Professor of Family and Community Medicine
- ICDS Affiliate
Department: College of Medicine
Email: wkt5075@psu.edu
Research Focuses: bioinformatics and health services research, evidence-based strategies and policy for supporting patient-centered care continuum and teamwork, value-driven decision making processes and health information technology, and telehealth adoption in ambulatory care settings
Website: Visit Wen-Jan's Website

Adri van Duin
- Distinguished Professor of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering
- ICDS Associate
Department: Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering
Office: 240 Research East Building, University Park
Email: acv13@psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-6277
Research Focuses: Reactive force fields; computational methods in materials; hydrocarbons; all-carbon materials; nitramines; proteins; semiconductors; transition metals
Website: Visit Adri's Website

Suhang Wang
- Assistant Professor of Information Sciences and Technology
- ICDS Affiliate
Department: College of Information Sciences and Technology
Email: szw494@psu.edu
Research Focuses: Data Mining, Machine Learning, Graph Mining
Website: Visit Suhang's Website

Qingyun Wu
- Assistant Professor
- ICDS Associate
Department: College of Information Sciences and Technology
Email: qxw5138@psu.edu
Research Focuses: Reinforcement Learning, Automated Machine Learning
Website: Visit Qingyun's Website

Aleksandra Zgierska
- Jeanne L. and Thomas L. Leaman, MD, Endowed Professor and Vice Chair for Research, Department of Family and Community Medicine
- Professor of Public Health Sciences
- Professor of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine
Email: akz5194@psu.edu
Research Focuses: improving health outcomes in addiction, pain, and other impactful conditions
Website: Visit Aleksandra's Website