College of Science new faculty members after attending the first of four meetings as part of the Science Faculty Scholars program.
College of Science new faculty members after attending the first of four meetings as part of the Science Faculty Scholars program.

The College of Science is proud to welcome several new faculty members:

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Dr. Chaity Banerjee Mukherjee

Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science

Dr. Banerjee Mukherkee's research involves the intersection of AI, data science, machine learning. She has worked with data from different domains like biological sciences, computational fluid dynamics and wireless communication. MS Computer Applications from West Bengal U. of Technology and MS & PhD in Computer Science from Florida State University. Dr. Banerjee Mukherjee was a post-doctoral researcher at University of Central Florida. 

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Dr. Keka Biswas

Clinical Instructor, Department of Biological Sciences

Dr Keka C. Biswas received her doctorate in Biology from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM, USA. She did her Masters in Zoology, Bachelor of Science in Microbiology and Bachelor of Education from University of Nagpur, India. Dr Biswas was a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Biochemistry in UC Boulder, Colorado.
 

 

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Ms. Vivian Brasfield

Lecturer, Department of Atmospheric & Earth Science

Ms. Brasfield has been in Huntsville for the past seven years working towards her BS in Earth System Science and MS in Atmospheric Science. Her research includes many areas of atmospheric science, but is most interested in tropical weather and its associated severe weather. 

 

Dr. Bramwell Brizendine

Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science

Dr. Bramwell Brizendine is a cybersecurity expert. He has done research in reverse engineering, software exploitation, malware analysis, and offensive security. Dr. Brizendine has presented at and also been an invited speaker at many of the to national and international cybersecurity and hacking conferences. Dr. Brizendine was a speaker at the most recent DEF CON, presenting a new offensive security tool and his research. Dr. Brizendine will be presenting a shellcode analysis framework in Prague at Virus Bulletin, the most prestigious malware conference, in the coming months. Dr. Brizendine's framework includes features for shellcode emulation, a disassembler, and capabilities for timeless debugging, among others.

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Dr. Sukanya Chakrabarti

Professor and Mrs. Pei-Lin Chan Chair, Department of Physics & Astronomy

Dr. Chakrabarti has worked broadly across many areas of astronomy, and much of her current work is focused on carrying out time-series precision measurements to understand the nature of dark matter and dark energy. MS in Physics from Georgia Institute for Technology and PhD in Physics from UC Berkeley. Dr. Chakrabarti was a post-doctoral research at Harvard and UC Berkeley as well as Assistant Professor and Associate Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology. 

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Dr. Ali Elgindi

Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematical Sciences

MS from Michigan State University and PhD in Mathematics from University of Chicago. Dr. Elgindi was Assistant Professor at Alfaisal University and Texas A&M University at Qatar.


 

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Dr. Vinh Nguyen Du Le

Assistant Professor, Department of Physics & Astronomy

Dr. Du Le was a previous Postdoctoral Associate at the University of California in Davis (UCD) and at Florida International University (FIU) where he also served as an instructor. Dr Le participated in a clinical residency in Radiation Oncology Physics at the Hamilton Cancer Center (Canada), received a PhD degree in Medical Physics from McMaster University (Canada), and has authored and co-authored over 20 peer-reviewed articles.  At UAH, Dr. Le's research focuses on translational bio-photonics and biophysics where he applies the understanding of the interaction between photon and biological tissues, and its relationship with physiological mechanisms to develop optical tools for radiation clinics and other medical applications.

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Dr. Kiley Heflin

Lecturer, Department of Physics & Astronomy

Dr. Heflin was awarded his PhD from UAH in 2020 on Pulsar Timing as a Direct Probe of Galactic Dark Matter. He is a physicist with Polaris Sensor Technologies.

 

 

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Mr. Benjamin Hession

Lecturer, Department of Chemistry

Dr. Hession is an accomplished Laboratory Scientist with a Master of Science degree in Chemistry from the University of Alabama in Huntsville with experience as laboratory instructor, tutor, and mentor for undergraduate chemistry students. He has worked successfully in the fields of higher education, polymer synthesis and characterization, and immune repertoire sequencing.

 

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Dr. Bradley Kraemer

Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences

Research in the Kraemer lab focuses on the relationship between neurotrophin signaling and neurodegenerative diseases. Their recent research efforts revealed a novel mechanism through which the p75 neurotrophin receptor (p75NTR) is activated in dopaminergic neurons subjected to oxidative stress. His laboratory is also interested in factors that regulate neurite degeneration, a cellular process associated with the early stages of multiple neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Huntington’s disease. The Kraemer laboratory regularly provides training opportunities through which students learn to perform a range of molecular biology research methods using samples from cell culture and rodent models. 

Dr. Jie Ling

Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry

Dr. Ling earned a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry from Auburn University and a MS in Materials Chemistry from Wuhan University. Upon completion his Ph.D., Dr. Ling worked at University of Notre Dame, IN, as a postdoctoral associate. Before joining Claflin University as a faculty member, he had worked at National Gypsum and Rockwood Lithium over four years. 

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Ms. Angela Morgan-Green

Lecturer, Department of Mathematical Sciences

Ms. Morgan-Green received her MA in Applied Mathematics from UAH and BA in Math with minor in Chemistry from Oakwood University. She has been teaching math at UAH since Fall 2020. 


 

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Dr. Olaf Nachtigall

Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry

Dr. Nachtigall his MS and PhD from Freie Universität Berlin. His dissertation was titled Functionalization of Redox-Active Vanadium Clusters. He was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Rochester and University of California-Irvine.

 

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Dr. Cuong Nguyen

Lecturer, Department of Chemistry

Dr. Nguyen earned his MS in Chemical Engineering and PhD in Materials Science from UAH. His research involved the Effect of Deposition Parameters and Constrained areas on the Characteristics of Langmuir Films of Nanoparticles. In this study, they find that the touch method creates a more uniform film than the drop method. He teaches General Chemistry I, Gen Chem II, Quantitative Chemical Analysis lectures, and labs.

Dr. Elizabeth Okoth

Lecturer, Department of Chemistry

Dr. Okoth earned her PhD in Organic Chemistry from Louisiana State University with research titled Synthesis, Characterization and Biological Evaluation of Monoisomeric Zinc Phthalocyanines for Imaging and Photodynamic Therapy. 

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Dr. Buddhi Pushpawela

Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Physics & Astronomy

Dr. Pushpawela earned a PhD from Queensland University of Technology in Australia. Her research area is Aerosol Science, with specialization in New Particle Formation (secondary aerosol formation), Indoor and Outdoor Air Quality, Instrumentation, and Research on control measures in Aerosol-Driven Disease Transmission. Dr. Pushpawela joined the College of Science in Spring 2022.
 

 

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Dr. Peter Veres

Assistant Professor, Department of Space Science

Dr. Veres earned his MS and PhD at the Eotvos University in Budapest. He was a postdoc at Pennsylvania State University and George Washington University. His main research is focused on gamma-ray bursts, modelling the prompt and afterglow emission. He is also interested in active galaxies, very high energy emission, polarization, neutrino sources and gravitational waves.