At the start of the fall semester, mechanical and aerospace engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology welcomed five faculty members to campus. Their expertise ranges from aerothermodynamics and advanced manufacturing to machine learning and hypersonics.

This year’s new faculty are:

• Dr. Mohammad Abbas, assistant teaching professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. Abbas earned three degrees from Missouri S&T — a Ph.D. and master’s degree in aerospace engineering and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. His areas of expertise include thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, aerospace propulsion, vehicle performance, and general mechanics. He previously served as a graduate teaching assistant and course instructor at S&T.

• Dr. Richard Billo, director of the Kummer Institute Center for Advanced Manufacturing and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. Billo joined S&T on Jan. 4 from the University of Notre Dame, where he served as associate vice president for research and professor of computer science and engineering. Billo’s areas of research expertise include advanced manufacturing, industrial information systems, metallurgy and liquid fuels processes. He holds a Ph.D. and a master’s degree in industrial engineering from Arizona State University. He also holds a master’s degree in psychology from the University of the Pacific and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from West Virginia University.

• Dr. Xiaosong Du, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, joined S&T from the University of Michigan, where he was a postdoctoral research fellow. Du holds a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from Iowa State University, a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Beijing University, and a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in China. Du’s research interests include machine and deep learning; rapid aerodynamic forward; robust design; and single- and multi-fidelity predictive modeling.

• Dr. Zhi Liang, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. Liang joined S&T from California State University, Fresno, where he had served as assistant and then associate professor of mechanical engineering since 2016. Liang earned a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from S&T, and master’s and bachelor’s degrees in materials science and engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. His research interests include microscale and nanoscale thermodynamics and heat transfer; dynamics of nanodroplets, nanobubbles and nanoparticles; and computational modeling.

• Dr. Davide Viganò, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. He joins S&T from The University of Texas at Arlington, where he earned a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering and worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the Aerodynamics Research Center. He holds undergraduate degrees in aerospace engineering from Polytechnic University of Milan in Italy. Viganò’s research interests include hypersonic air-breathing propulsion, compressible turbulent mixing, vortex dynamics, hypersonic aerothermodynamics, experimental fluid dynamics, and instrumentation development.

About Missouri University of Science and Technology

Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) is a STEM-focused research university of over 7,000 students. Part of the four-campus University of Missouri System and located in Rolla, Missouri, Missouri S&T offers 101 degrees in 40 areas of study and is among the nation’s top 10 universities for return on investment, according to Business Insider. S&T also is home to the Kummer Institute, made possible by a $300 million gift from Fred and June Kummer. For more information about Missouri S&T, visit www.mst.edu.