2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

1. Prof. Antoinette M. Maniatty Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute [biography]

   Antoinette M. Maniaty is a professor and currently the department head of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). She earned a B.S. degree from RPI in 1987, an M.S. degree from the University of Minnesota in 1988, and a Ph.D. degree from Cornell University in 1991, all in Mechanical Engineering. After spending one year as a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Natal in Durban, South Africa, she joined the faculty at RPI in 1992 as the Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor (1992-1997). She was one of four women scientists and engineers nationwide to be awarded a Luce fellowship by the Luce Foundation in 1992. In 1993, she received a National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award. She was a member of the Defense Science Study Group in 2000 and 2001. In 2001, she was the first Loewy Visiting Professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Lehigh University. In 2005, she was named a Fellow of the ASME. On July 1, 2023, she was named Head of the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering at RPI.

2. Diana-Andra Borca-Tasciuc Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute [biography]

   Diana-Andra Borca-Tasciuc is a Professor in the Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she has been a faculty member since 2006. She holds a B.S. in Physics from Bucharest University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a recipient of the 2008 NSF CAREER Award and the 2013 Fulbright Scholarship. Her research interests lie in energy conversion, with a current focus on power harvesting microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), solar energy integration in building envelopes, and nanoscale thermal transport processes. Her work spans both fundamental and applied research, leading to over 100 journal articles and conference proceedings, as well as several patents and patent applications.

3. Dr. Catalin Picu Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (SoE) [biography]

   Catalin Picu is a Professor in the Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He holds a B.S. in
   Mechanical Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Dartmouth College. He held a research position at Brown University between 1995 and 1998. His research focuses on the mechanical behavior of materials, with emphasis on soft fibrous materials.

4. Sarah Felix Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute [biography]

   Sarah Felix is a Professor of Practice at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering department. She teaches control systems courses and design courses, and manages department-level curriculum initiatives. Dr. Felix worked in industry for 14 years prior to teaching.

5. Karthikeyan Panneerselvam Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
6. Prof. Eric Burkholder http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7420-4290 Auburn University [biography]

   Eric Burkholder is an Assistant Professor in the departments of physics and chemical engineering at Auburn University. He completed a PhD in chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology studying the physics of soft active matter. He then transitioned into STEM education research during his time as a postdoc at Stanford Univeristy. Eric's research focuses on the intersections of assessement, problem-solving, and equity in the undergraduate and graduate STEM classroom.

7. Fotis Kopsaftopoulos Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute [biography]

   Dr. Kopsaftopoulos is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY. His main interests pertain to data-driven methods for intelligent aerospace systems, structural health monitoring, fly-by-feel aerial vehicles, additive manufacturing, and multifunctional structures. He received his Diploma and Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering from University of Patras, Greece. Before joining Rensselaer, he served as a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University. Dr. Kopsaftopoulos has published more than 120 journal and conference papers and 4 book chapters. He has participated in various research projects funded by Government and industrial sponsors (DARPA, AFOSR, NSF, Army, Navy, ARPA-e, Boeing, Airbus). He serves as an Associate Editor in the Editorial Board of the Structural Health Monitoring International journal (SAGE) and Sensors (MDPI) journal. He is a member of the Organizing Committee of the International Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring (IWSHM), Chair of the Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) of the Vertical Flight Society (VFS), and member of the Program Committee of the InfoSymbiotics/Dynamic Data Driven Application Systems. He has also served as Guest Associate Editor for Special Issues in the Structural Health Monitoring and Aerospace journals.

8. Dr. Amy Jo Svirsky http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5652-2380 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute [biography]

   Amy Svirsky is the former Learning Assessment Specialist for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She worked with faculty to design and use learning outcomes assessments, analyze student learning data, and support curricular improvement. She is currently the Assessment Specialist with Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering (MANE) faculty for the NSF RED grant focused on engineering education transformation. Her expertise includes program evaluation, data literacy, and assessment in higher education. She earned her Ph.D. from Cornell University in applied sociology with a focus on program evaluation.

9. Wei Ji Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

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