Newsletter of the Tagliatela College of Engineering - Winter 2026

The dawn of a new year brings new excitement to the Tagliatela College of Engineering. At a time when the intake of international graduate students has drastically declined in the college, our efforts to teach international students directly in their home countries are coming to fruition. This newsletter opens with a story on our collaborative effort to deliver three undergraduate programs to students in China. We plan to also launch programs in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in the coming year.

Stories on a grant-funded effort to strengthen corporate engagement and technology transfer, and another grant-funded effort to train students to ethically and effectively use AI to enhance their technical communication come next. This is followed by stories on the launch of new programs in AI and the success of our MS in Chemistry program. We finish up by recognizing faculty and student achievements and recognizing two TCoE stalwarts who passed away in January 2026.

With warm regards,

Ron Harichandran
Dean, Tagliatela College of Engineering & Vice Provost for Research

It was an ambitious idea in international trading: a collaboration between the University of New Haven and Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications (XUPT) in China that would impart the American approach to engineering education to Chinese students while increasing revenue for UNewHaven.

Similar collaborations had been attempted before with other Chinese universities but the scale of the effort with XUPT is unparalleled. TCoE rose to the challenge with alacrity, and the result is three bachelor’s programs jointly taught by the two universities at XUPT: a B.S. in Computer Information Systems; a B. S. in Computer Engineering; and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering.

The University of New Haven is responsible for teaching one-third of the courses in each program in a hybrid mode. This coming spring, the first contingent of UNewHaven faculty will begin teaching remotely and then travel to Xi’an to teach in person for three weeks. From then on, UNewHaven will send faculty to Xi’an every semester.

Students have a choice of which institution will award their degree: If they pursue all four years of study at XUPT, they will receive a XUPT degree. If they transfer to spend their fourth year at UNewHaven, they will earn a University of New Haven degree.

XUPT rapidly created the physical infrastructure, transforming facilities to house the joint initiative in Xi’an. Xi’an is one of the oldest cities in China and the capital of Shaanxi Province. Its rich and ancient heritage includes the Silk Road, a network of routes used by traders from 1,500 B.C. to 1453 A.D., and the Terracotta Army, considered one of the great archaeological finds in history. This standing Army comprises thousands of life-size figures that guard the mausoleum of the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, who died in 210 B.C.

Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Cheryl Li and Dean Ron Harichandran, in collaboration with Olive Branch International — an organization that has experience in coordinating international programs in China and the Far East — shouldered the administrative and bureaucratic responsibilities that undergirded the collaboration’s success. They submitted applications to the Chinese embassy, drafted multiple Memorandums of Understanding, hosted XUPT delegates, held meetings with XUPT administrators and faculty, and presented the project to the Chinese Ministry of Education’s expert panel.

Their success in bringing two academic worlds together will have a significant financial impact on the University of New Haven. In Fall ’25, 344 students enrolled in the three programs, and the revenue is already starting to flow in.

Said Li, “Years ago when my son was a toddler, I dreamt of starting a bilingual kindergarten to nurture young minds with two languages. Little did I know, I would be thinking much bigger twenty years later. This project blends my original dream with a shared goal across two continents and an ocean to create something truly special in higher education.”

Dean Harichandran commented, “It has taken us three years to bring this collaborative initiative to fruition, and the timing of the launch is fortuitous. At a time when the intake of international students to the main campus has declined drastically, the launch of the XUPT programs will partially offset the loss of revenue and enable our faculty to continue their contribution to global education.”

Chris Standish, Ron Harichandran, and Ganesh Balasubramanian

The University of New Haven, with its internationally recognized faculty researchers, is well on the way to becoming a strong research institution.

The state of Connecticut, with its wealth of industry — including aerospace, defense, finance, insurance, advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, and healthcare and the people who run them — is a success story, but to maintain its success, it needs to be constantly fed with new innovations that are commercialized.

Do the parties of the first part interact with the parties of the second part? Not so much, unless they meet at a party.

It’s a situation begging to be remedied, and that’s just what a recently awarded National Science Foundation grant is being earmarked to do. Led by Ron Harichandran, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE, Dean of the Tagliatela College of Engineering; Ganesh Balasubramanian, Ph.D., Lambrakis associate professor and chair of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering; and Chris Standish, executive director of Research Administration, the three-year, $400,000 grant — Enabling Partnerships to Increase Innovation Capacity (EPIIC) — will be used to introduce faculty in emerging technology areas to stakeholders in specific companies, other universities, and community organizations that are related to the faculty members’ disciplines.

The offices of Advancement and Career Services will play a key role, helping faculty to engage with regional companies to showcase university research. We’re talking actual contacts — names will be named. The faculty will then be incentivized to keep these relationships going through fellowships.

The University of New Haven is part of a five-institution cohort that will benefit from the EPIIC grant titled “Building Relationships in Innovation and Development for Growth in Emerging Technologies (BRIDGE-TECH).” Bradley University, Pennsylvania State University - Harrisburg, Widener University, and Wilkes University are the other members of the cohort, with each receiving $400,000 over three years. Several other cohorts around the country will also begin their EPIIC journey in 2025, with each cohort addressing its own particular needs for innovation and research.

With EPIIC funds, the University of New Haven will also develop its capacity for technology transfer, bringing its research to practice through engagement with industry and commercialization. With the creation of marketing tools for outreach, and infrastructure for technology transfer management, EPIIC will lay the foundation for new and exciting growth at the university as well as possible new income streams.

The grant dovetails perfectly with a recent real estate purchase by the University. The property is adjacent to campus and is intended to be the site of a Center for Innovation and Applied Technology. The purchase — an initiative spearheaded by University president Jens Frederiksen — will bring together companies and students for potential collaboration and innovation.

Connecticut: Get ready for an EPIIC economic boost.

Or, to put it more bluntly: When using AI to help with technical writing projects, where does one stop before it becomes slop? Yes, slop. “AI Slop” is an actual bona-fide term. It denotes content that lacks substance, depth, and individuality while “excelling” in banality, sameness, and being everywhere you don’t want it to be. AI Slop is the obnoxious cousin of spam. But unlike spam, which just sits around being a nuisance, AI Slop is becoming a troublemaker, especially in academia and the workplace.

Despite its perceived shortcomings, AI is here to stay, and there’s no sense denying that, as a tool, it enhances efficiency and assists in data analysis, brainstorming, and other tasks, thereby reducing time and effort. Naturally, that makes it attractive to both students and employees. But should there be a balance between getting the job done and how it gets done. Is the work an accurate reflection of the AI user’s own talent and ability?

Currently, many faculty members struggle with that question. Do they encourage AI use, prohibit it entirely, or find some happy medium? In the workplace — a more practical, more profit-driven arena — if the AI output meets company objectives, do employers really care if the goal was achieved with heavy input from a digital brain rather than a human one? Or, that it’s lacking in creativity, depth, and originality?

Now, with funding from the Davis Education Foundation, the Tagliatela College of Engineering is launching a two-year project to answer those questions. The project aims to study, analyze, and make recommendations on AI use and identify the place where diminishing returns start to set in. Their findings, of course, will help faculty set guidelines for students’ work, but the real stakeholders here are employers — the end target in almost every engineering program in existence. Generally, employers say, AI … yes, of course … have to keep up … fierce competition … bottom line, yada, yada.

On the other hand, a recent Harvard Business Review¹ study conducted with Stanford University and BetterUp found that AI “workslop” was actually creating more work — for fellow employees. However, in the survey conducted as part of the College’s project, the slop factor was not the primary concern for employers. Privacy and data security were.

The College’s current project is actually a resurrection of the spectacularly successful Project to Integrate Technical Communication Habits (PITCH), which, by 2015, had woven communications skills into all required engineering and computer science courses over the four years of undergraduate study. But that was before the appearance of generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT — game-changers whose ripple effects still have not reached their outer limits.

The task of PITCH 2.0 will be to refine and update its predecessor. That will include:

Ron Harichandran, Dean of the Tagliatela College of Engineering, and David J. Adams, the consultant who supported the original PITCH project, are the Principal Investigators on the project, with co-PIs: Vahid Behzadan, associate professor of Data Science; Kristine Horvat, associate professor of Chemical Engineering; Nandan Shetty, assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Joseph Levert, associate professor of Mechanical Engineering; and Adrian Rusu, professor of Computer Science.

Said Harichandran: “Teaching students how to use Generative AI effectively, responsibly, and ethically is critically important in preparing them for the future workforce. We are getting a head start to give our students a competitive edge.”

The use of AI in academia and the workplace may present a dilemma now. But it’s a solvable one. Just as long as the individuals designing the solutions are not AI-generated. That would be Artificial Unintelligence.

¹ "AI-Generated 'Workslop' Is Destroying Productivity". Harvard Business Review.

The graduate program line-up this spring has a new entry: an M.S. in AI, which is offered both on-ground and online.

Previously, the study of AI was part of the M.S. in Data Science, but the field has its own huge, unique identity and merited a program that revolved around it and it alone.

Applicants to the program typically have a computer science, engineering, or math undergraduate degree or come from one of the natural sciences, such as physics.

Launch of the new M.S. program brought to the fore the need for a new B.S. in AI program. New undergraduate programs in AI are being launched around the country as demand for these is ramping up among high school graduates. With a strong group of faculty with expertise in AI already present in the college, launching a cutting-edge B.S. in AI program was a relatively easy feat. Students can enroll in the new program starting with the Fall 2026 semester.

Launched in 2019 with 16 students, UNewHaven’s M.S. in Chemistry program almost quadrupled enrollment by 2024.

What’s the attraction? One factor is its integrative curriculum — a potent compound of computational, theoretical, and experimental chemistry. In fact, it is among the first graduate programs in the nation to offer this kind of intradisciplinary curriculum. At the regional level, according to CourseAdvisor, the program is one of the top four in the Northeast for the number of M.S. in Chemistry degrees awarded, following Yale, Harvard, and Brown University.

The program is also something of a grant magnet. The National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the American Chemical Society, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have contributed several million. Strong faculty scholarship, showcased in numerous peer-reviewed articles — often in collaboration with students — is the powerful attractant.

Currently, the program’s students come from both above and below the master’s level. Eight students are simultaneously in the Ph.D. in Engineering and Applied Sciences program with a concentration in Chemistry and use the M.S. to fulfill their chemistry requirement. The majority of students hail from the 4+1 Dual Degree B.S. in Forensic Science/M.S. in Chemistry pathway.

For Tarek Ibrahim, a Ph.D. candidate, the M.S. in Chemistry gave him the level of knowledge and experience to engage in a research project that focused on the development of a new class of recyclable polymers under the mentorship of Assistant Professor Hao Sun. Ibrahim’s work won him the prestigious Eastman Chemical Student Award in 2025. He was one of only six awardees in the U.S., most of whom were from top R1 research universities, including Stanford, Cornell, the University of Michigan, and Northwestern.

Professor Sun muses on the link between successful students such as Ibrahim, some of the most pressing issues facing the world, and the relevance of UNewHaven’s M.S. in Chemistry: “Chemistry is central not only to the traditional petroleum industry, but also to many emerging technologies such as biotechnology, semiconductors, and electric vehicles. Our program is dedicated to developing the next generation of leaders who will tackle society’s most urgent challenges.”

Byungik Chang, Professor and Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has been elected Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) as well as Fellow of the Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) of the ASCE. He is one of only three SEI Fellows in Connecticut.

The double recognition was inspired by the significant contributions he has made to the field, including founding and leading the M.S. In Civil Engineering at the University, teaching, and conducting research.

Chang’s research in structural engineering integrates bridge inspection, structural health monitoring, and renewable energy infrastructure. His publications in leading ASCE journals have contributed to the profession’s understanding of structural resilience and wind-induced behavior of slender support structures.

In his collaborations with the Connecticut Department of Transportation, the NASA CT Space Grant, and industry partners he has helped design practical applications that enhance public safety while successfully meeting goals of sustainability.

President Jens Frederiksen, Huan Gu, Kristine Horvat, and TCoE Dean Ron Harichandran

In the academic sphere, faculty awards are sought-after but actually not that uncommon. However, there is one honor that easily surpasses all of them in sheer prestige. The named chair or professorship. The donors who make these positions possible live on through them for many decades after they’ve shed this mortal coil.

Clarice Buckman, the late widow of Jacob F. Buckman, was one such donor when she established the named positions in 1981 to honor her husband Jacob, who co-founded Enthone Corporation in West Haven. Dr. Kristine Horvat, the Interim Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical & Biomedical Engineering, and Dr. Huan Gu, Coordinator of the M.S. in Chemical Engineering program, are the 2026 recipients of her generosity.

Dr. Horvat was recently appointed to a three-year term as the Jacob F. Buckman Endowed Chair in chemistry and chemical engineering. A passionate researcher and educator, her work focuses on developing cleaner, sustainable energy solutions by exploring gas hydrates as alternative energy sources. Her research also encompasses biofuel production from algal and cellulosic material.

Horvat’s many publications have contributed to a deeper understanding among her peers of hydrate thermodynamics, sludge dewatering, and biofuel extraction.

In the classroom, she is lauded for integrating inquiry-based and project-based learning so that her students graduate as stronger, more mature, more job-ready engineers.

Dr. Gu has received the coveted Buckman Professsorship in chemistry and chemical engineering for a term of three years.

Gu’s research centers on engineering bacterial biofilm formation through chemical and topographical surface modifications. The applications of her findings are many and critical to human health, particularly in medical settings. After earning her doctorate, she received a prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship to investigate, among other things, bacterial biofilms in built environments and their role in hospital-acquired infections.

She later served as co-Investigator on a National Institutes of Health R01 award to engineer a bio-inspired, soft-robotic surface designed for long-term biofilm control on medical devices. She is currently a PI on an NSF Launching Early-Career Academic Pathways in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences grant.

Professors Nagasree Garapati and Kristine Horvat

Three University of New Haven women distinguished themselves as outstanding leaders and innovators among a field of nearly 100 nominees in the 20th Annual Women of Innovation Awards, which was held on October 28, 2025 and sponsored by the Connecticut Technology Council.

The three were among the forty-six who were honored as finalists for their achievements in STEM fields. Nominees included scientists, researchers, academics, manufacturers, student leaders, entrepreneurs, and technicians who are presently driving scientific advancement and business growth throughout Connecticut.

There were nine award categories in all. Here’s where the three UNewHaven women found their niche:

The awards event, aside from the honors bestowed, was also the scene of some heavy-duty networking. Technology and business leaders from across the state were present in significant numbers. Their keen eye for new talent missed nothing, of course, and new connections — some fruitful, others filed away for future reference — heightened the evening’s excitement.

The team that broke the cyber barrier (l to r):  Nicholas Dellagrotte, Braeden Allen, Ronald Scarpa (Captain), Kristine Zurovchak, Mark Daniels, Tyler Burzenski, Prof. Murat Gunestas

For the second year in a row, the University of New Haven’s Cybersecurity and Hacking Team took second place in the Northeast Regional Collegiate Penetration Testing Competition (CPTC). This year they beat West Point, the Air Force Academy, Northeastern University, and all others in the ten-team match. The University of Massachusetts Amherst took first place, and Penn State, third. The competition was held on the UNewHaven campus this year. It was the 11th annual competition for the region.

A type of ethical hacking, penetration testing trains its sights on a specific system, application, or network and launches a cyber attack to test the strength and security of the target. The CPTC is an opportunity for students to test their skill in this area before entering the real-world job market. It’s not a game. It’s professional-grade, intense, and very much a work experience that makes students not just ready and willing but able to be an immediate asset to their first employer.

This year’s second-place win opened the possibility of progressing to the Finals — a 12-team match-up that includes five wild-card teams. Following the competition, the UNewHaven team went on to earn wild-card status and qualified to compete in the finals against eleven other top universities. While the UNewHaven team didn’t place in the top three at the finals, they had a great ride to it.

Assistant Professor Murat Gunestas, who advised the team supported by Associate Professor of Practice Liberty Page, says his trust in the team couldn’t be stronger. “I’m proud that they continue to impress with their skill, discipline, and professionalism — qualities that will see them through any competition and their real-world careers to come.”

Cassandra Collins and Jillian Carroll

The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) recently recognized Chemical Engineering students Cassandra Collins and Jillian Carroll for their outreach to middle schoolers via an award-winning learning module. The module that they developed introduces the students to core concepts in chemical engineering.

Collins and Carroll had entered the AIChE’s K- 12 STEM Outreach Competition. Their work was voted the top module for grades 6 through 8 (a $200 award) and, overall, won first place (a $500 award) in undergraduate submitted modules.

In the competition, each module must include a learning objective, real-world context, and an interactive activity. It becomes a learning experience for the student designers as well as for their intended K-12 targets. The designers must translate complex science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) ideas into an accessible engaging experience for younger learners.

While there’s no dearth of people who can make the simplest things complicated, making the complex simple takes real talent and a thorough understanding of the subject matter — qualities which Collins and Carroll more than aptly demonstrated in their module.

The undergraduates’ work earned more than recognition, though. It earned a place on the AIChE website, where it will be publicly available as a ready-to-use tool for educators, student chapters, and community organizations.

Dr. Nagasree Garapati and Dr. Kristine Horvat mentored the students, but the idea for the module came from Collins and Carroll themselves.

“Cassandra Collins and Jillian Carroll had already distinguished themselves as scholars and leaders within the University,” said Garapati. “Through the AIChE STEM Outreach Competition, they’ve also demonstrated an exceptional ability to translate classroom knowledge into meaningful experiential learning.”

Academic knowledge plus the talent to put it across: the exact equation needed to ignite the next generation of chemical engineers.

We started 2026 with the loss of two beloved members of the Tagliatela College of Engineering faculty: Dr. Darrell Horning, professor emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Dr. William “Bill” Gere Jr., chair of the Industrial Engineering Department and dean of the Graduate School. Both passed away in January.

Their former colleagues spoke with eloquence about the two men.

“Darrell was a tremendous force in launching and shaping our Computer Engineering program,” said Ali Golbazi,, professor and chair of the Electrical Engineering & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Department. “His teaching bailiwick included digital design, microcontrollers, digital signal processing, and fuzzy logic — knowledge he excitedly passed on to thousands of young engineers in the making. He was deeply respected by both faculty and students for his intellect, dedication, and integrity.”

Ira Kleinfeld, professor emeritus of Industrial Engineering, spoke with deep fondness about Bill Gere and his trademark humanity with all who came into his orbit. “He was a caring person, a real gentleman,” he remembered. “He touched everyone with whom he interacted, with grace and kindness.” Ali Montazer, professor of Industrial Engineering said about Dr. Gere: “As chair of his department and dean of the Graduate School, Bill was the perfect amalgam: leader, inspirer, teacher, and simply a quality, first-class human being.”

More details about Dr. Horning's legacy is in his tribute here. Dr. Gere’s obituary can be found here.

Darrell Horning

William “Bill” Gere Jr.

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