Newsletter of the Tagliatela College of Engineering - Spring 2025

In the new 2025 research activity category within the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education®, the University of New Haven has been elevated to the list of Research Colleges and Universities.

The Tagliatela College of Engineering — with its growing research expenditures and four National Science Foundation CAREER award winners over the last five years — contributed strongly to the wind beneath the University’s wings.

The University’s new designation will serve as a magnet for recruiting top-notch faculty and students who are motivated to secure grants and conduct research that benefit the whole of society.

Published by the American Council on Education, the Carnegie Classification was created by the Carnegie Commission on Higher education in 1970 and is the leading framework for recognizing, describing, and classifying colleges and universities in the United States.

What does an existing workforce in cybersecurity and AI — or those entering the fields — need more than anything? More training. Always more training.

While every field must keep up with new developments, the whiplash-inducing forward charges in cybersecurity and AI make every workday a school day as well, with intense classes in how-to-deal-with-this-now or wow-what-can’t this thing do.

We’re about to see some order brought to the scramble to keep up. The University of New Haven, thanks to a $2.5 million grant from the National Security Agency, will lead a coalition of five universities in educating and training the existing and future workforce in four critical infrastructure sectors: energy, government facilities, finance, and telecommunications.

The University of New Haven will tackle the finance sector. Tennessee Technological University will focus on energy. The University of Hawaii — state and local employees, non-profits, and small businesses. Coastline Community College will set its sights on telecommunications. And the University of North Texas will develop and pilot a workforce readiness assessment tool to help employers in the hiring process.

Through its Connecticut Institute of Technology, the University of New Haven will work with Connecticut state agencies, including the Department of Banking, the Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, Administrative Services, and the Connecticut Education Network. The goal will be micro-credentials for two pathways, each targeted to a specific type of professional.

The courses for the micro-credentials will be mapped to one work role described by the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s NICE Cybersecurity Workforce framework. This framework establishes a common language that describes cybersecurity work and its pertinent knowledge and skills — and one competency depicted by the Department of Defense Cyber Workforce (DCWF) Framework, a lexicon based on the work performed by an individual instead of a position title, occupational series, or designator.

One micro-credential will be titled Cyber Threat Intelligence for Finance Professionals, tailored to cyber threat/warning analysts. The other micro-credential — AI in Cybersecurity — will be targeted to DCWF Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning specialists.

In addition to existing employees in the above fields who want to upskill or re-skill, the University expects to recruit new employees from veterans, first responders, transitioning military, and military spouses.

“This Immersive Cybersecurity Workforce Development project, funded through the National Security Agency and the National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity, will put the University of New Haven at the forefront of cyber education and workforce development,” said Tirthankar Ghosh, professor and director of the Connecticut Institute of Technology.”

That day can’t come too soon for Mark Raymond, chief information officer and deputy commissioner for Connecticut’s Department of Administration. “Today, there are more than 4,000 open roles in Connecticut for cybersecurity professionals,” he said. “We look forward to working with the University of New Haven to create more pathways into these important roles.”

Nadiye Erdil (center) with Amy Thompson (left) and Jacquelynn Garofano from CCAT

The Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology (CCAT) has launched a new fellowship program designed to immerse college faculty members in advanced manufacturing technologies and Industry 4.0 practices. The aim is for them to emerge from the immersion ready, willing, and able to incorporate their newfound knowledge into their schools’ curricula.

Dr. Nadiye Erdil, associate professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering at the University of New Haven (pictured in the center), is one of nine faculty members from around the state who have received a fellowship.

Industry 4.0 — aka the Fourth Industrial Revolution — is the complete merger of the physical with the virtual. That is, sensors are embedded into equipment to enable the manufacturing process to be measured, analyzed, and optimized. In this Industrial Internet of Things, individual pieces of equipment can have a back-and-forth “conversation” about productivity, efficiency, and other fascinating insights.

The faculty fellows will spend approximately 100 hours in the immersion. It will include 56 hours of on-site training sessions, 40 hours of online training sessions, and two Capstone Curriculum Development Workshops of eight hours each.

Connecticut businesses, of course, are eagerly anticipating the influx of Industry 4.0 –knowledgeable graduates into the job market. Becoming more operationally efficient and reducing product lead time is not an advantage, it’s a mandate — decreed by ever fiercer competition for customers with ever higher expectations.

The sea was serenely beautiful until a giant, grinning, Lego figure floated by. The wildflower-dotted hillside? Pristine, until a rogue garbage bag blew into the picture. And the landfills? Ever-growing monuments to plastic’s refusal to call it quits.

Incinerating it? That’s just a phase change and one that makes plastic unhealthy, not just unsightly.

Plastics are two-faced. They’ve been a boon to humanity and offended it on a regular basis for about a century now.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Hao Sun wants to end that frustrating dichotomy and preserve plastic’s positive contributions while seriously limiting its ability to make a mess. A recent National Science Foundation CAREER grant for $608,000 is giving him the chance to further that goal.

His method will involve creating novel polyolefin (a type of polymer) by designing new cyclic olefin monomers with low-to-moderate ring strain.

What, exactly, does that mean?

Polymers (and all plastics are polymers) are composed of many monomers.  Cyclic monomers have a ring structure subject to ring strain, a type of instability. High ring strain allows monomers to more easily form polymers, but it compromises the reverse process — i.e., the breakdown of polymers into monomers.

Why is this an issue? Because breaking down polymers renders monomers that can then be recycled into new polymer plastics instead of cluttering up the planet as never-say-die waste.

Sun and his student research group, therefore, will work on creating monomers with reduced ring strain to make polymerization possible while making depolymerization into monomers easier.

The group will also study the ceiling temperature of polymers — the temperature above which they break down into monomers.  That temperature for current plastics is inherently high and requires intensive energy to effect the breakdown. The goal: make polymers with tunable ceiling temperatures by modifying their molecular structure. In other words, tailor the ceiling temperature to the type of polymer and use the lowest possible temperature to trigger the breakdown.

Obviously, there’s a beautiful economy to this polymer-monomer chemistry — beautiful because it’s a circular economy. Monomers become polymers, which become monomers again, which become new polymers.

It’s a tight economy, too. There’s simply no room in it for a piece of plastic to go off on its own and become trashy.

Sun is the fourth NSF CAREER grant recipient in the Tagliatela College of Engineering.

Ever see a dog brave a radioactive disaster scene at a nuclear power plant to check if it’s safe for humans to enter? You will if the dog is named Spot.

Spot, of course, is Boston Dynamics’ famous robotic dog and, thanks to a recent National Science Foundation grant for $323,000, he’s working for us.

Shayok Mukhopadhyay, associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is the principal investigator on the grant. Together with colleagues Cheryl Li, associate professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Vahid Behzadan, assistant professor of Computer Science and Data Science, he hopes to give Spot a lot more territory in which to roam by pushing back the boundaries of robotic exploration in hazardous environments.

The grant enabled Mukhopadhyay to buy Spot. In fact, anyone can buy Spot or one of his doppelgängers for $75,000. Once the dog is theirs, though, they have to “train” it — that is, develop the software that runs it and customizes it for a specific task.

So far, the companies that have bought the four-legged, terrain-climbing, 360-degree-visioned canine robot have given it fairly limited assignments — documenting construction progress, monitoring hazardous environments, and taking photos at locations such as factory floors, construction sites, research labs, and decommissioned nuclear sites.

Mukhopadhyay’s research will focus on elevating Spot’s capabilities by training it for high-risk emergency situations. “We want to develop a system that can go in and check out debris before emergency rescue crews enter or even while they work,” he explained.

The challenge is that real-world emergencies can be unpredictable and even state-of-the-art robots struggle with adapting to things suddenly going awry, such as shifting debris. Mukhopadhyay and his team will work to advance Spot’s risk-aware systems and make the dog more able to handle surprises.

This is where AI will come in, to help in the dog’s “decision-making” ability — in other words to make it more autonomous. “You could give the robot a command, and it would understand what action it should perform — such as moving a block of debris — but it also needs to figure out if that action is mechanically feasible,” he elaborated.

“Go figure.” That’s a command a dog this smart can sink its teeth into.

Dr. Nagasree Garapati, assistant professor of Chemical Engineering, noticed something disturbing about her students. They were taking courses in the entrepreneurial mindset and sustainability and then not taking that knowledge with them to subsequent classes. Specifically, they weren’t able to apply what they had learned and integrate it into their upper-level design concepts. Also, in their senior capstone projects, they had trouble identifying other stakeholders beyond the project’s sponsor.

Those disconnects are about to be remedied, thanks to a KEEN (Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network) fellowship won by Garapati. She is the third faculty member in the TCoE to receive the sought-after $10,000 fellowship.

Garapati teaches courses at all college levels, so she was able to identify and analyze the problem up close and design a solution. With the aid of the fellowship, she will incorporate entrepreneurial mindset and sustainability concepts into curricula for first-year and upper-level chemical engineering classes, developing courses that will require students to design products that answer customer needs while meeting requirements for sustainability and safety.

Thanks to Garapati’s initiative, “use it or lose it” will replace “learn ‘em and leave ‘em” when it comes to entrepreneurial thinking and sustainability studies — with the “lose it” part simply not an option.

There seems to be some discrepancy when it comes to the understanding of “career-ready” in college graduates.  Too often it’s more like “career-ready or not, here I come.”

Thanks to a recent Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF) Faculty Innovation Fellowship, however, Professor of Computer Science Mehdi Mekni will help to bridge the gap that frequently yawns between a college degree and actual workforce readiness.

A large plank of that bridge will be forging employer partnerships and leveraging the cutting-edge tools and expertise they will bring, in addition to projects that prepare students for success through collaborations with employers.

As a BHEF Faculty Innovation fellow, Mekni is part of a diverse national cohort of nearly 50 faculty members across two cohorts.  It is the inaugural cohort of the prestigious program, which received applications from across the U.S.  The faculty members represent 13 institutions across ten states and come from a spectrum of disciplines, including engineering, computer science, business, hospitality, nursing, and social sciences.

Mekni already showed solid evidence of his bridge-building expertise in 2022 and 2023 when he secured a valuable professional credential from Unity for his computer science students.  Unity is the world’s leading game engine platform for creating and operating real-time 3D content.  Mekni embedded the credential in the University of New Haven’s Game Design and Development curriculum through the Connecticut Tech Talent Accelerator program, which boosted enrollment by 40%.

A Unity Certified User (UCU) certification allows a graduate to start immediately in interactive content creation for industries such as gaming, entertainment, extended reality, real-time 3-D, and more.  Students with a UCU certification enter the job market with a decided competitive edge, thanks to their mastery of core Unity skills.

Through the BHEF Faculty Innovation fellowship, Mekni will take the credential idea and build on it by designing a comprehensive pathway of stackable microcredentials.  Unity offers a number of them in areas that include virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence in gaming.

He will start by engaging industry stakeholders to identify where the skills gaps are and where they are going to make an appearance next.  The insights he gains from these encounters will then be deployed in developing program curricula and embedding the credentials within them.

For Mekni, when it comes to designing curricula, it’s not just outside-the-box thinking.  It’s more like kicking the box to the curb.  “This challenge requires reimagining traditional curricula and institutional strategies,” he said.  “It’s about responsiveness to employer needs in a highly specific way. The talent pipeline we want to create won’t just deposit somewhat qualified applicants into employers’ laps.  It will deliver applicants that hit all the job description requirements on the nose.”

For the fifth time, the Tagliatiela College of Engineering hosted the New England regionals of a global penetration testing competition. The challenge: Find ways to breach a mythical company’s computer system and use that success to devise solutions to make the system as impenetrable as possible.

Out of eight teams, the University’s Cybersecurity and Hacking team came in second, right behind the first-place winner, the University of Massachusetts – Amherst, and in front of West Point, which took third.

Murat Gunestas, assistant professor of Cybersecurity and the hacking team coach, called the competition “the most realistic I’ve ever seen. Besides technical skills, it tested students’ professionalism, communication skills, ethical approach, and responsibility.”

Students who participate in the competition are highly sought after the by the professional world and by government agencies. Graduates of the University’s Cybersecurity program are known for taking their white hat cyber skills to the MITRE Corporation as well as the National Security Agency, the FBI, the military, the FCIC, and the U.S. Department of State.

At an international graduate student symposium that attracted student researchers from all points of the globe — including from Singapore, Australia, China, and the U.S. — University of New Haven Ph.D. candidate Tarek Ibrahim won the Best Oral Presentation Award for his talk titled “Towards a Circular Economy: Recycling of Hydrocarbon Backbone Polyheptanamer Enabled by Low Strain of Seven-Membered Cycloheptene.” The research aims at addressing the issue of plastic waste as well as significantly reducing dependence on fuel-based polymers.

The subject matter was compelling, of course, to fellow students at the Third Graduate Student Forum on Molecule Precision Synthesis and Carbon-Circular Chemistry. But Ibrahim’s superb powers of communication weighed heavily in the award. Not every member of the audience was an expert in polymer and organic chemistry and making the research understandable to them took real talent.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Hao Sun was quick to point out that the award was also the end product of a winning formula: “Tarek’s success in winning this award exemplifies — and is the result of — the world-class research and opportunities the University provides to its students.”

Mark Guido and Joseph Nemorin, who hail from the MITRE Corporation and The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, respectively, have brought their experience, talents, and insights to the table.

As Department Manager at MITRE, Guido has spent the last eight years focusing on digital forensics, offensive operations, and the application of AI and Autonomy in cyber operations. His background includes developing a Security Operations Center for federal law enforcement organizations and positions as Lead Engineer in developing and implementing proactive detection capabilities for advanced threats to government systems and as Lead Analyst to over 50 counterintelligence, criminal, CT or security investigations. MITRE is a valued partner of the University in cybersecurity initiatives and has hired a number of its students.

Joseh Nemorin ’03 B.S., ’08 EMBA — an alumnus of the University — is a Senior Electronics Design Engineer of electronics and communications systems for Port Authority facilities, which include the country’s busiest airport system, marine terminals and ports, the PATH rail transit system, six tunnels and bridges, the Port Authority bus terminal, and the World Trade Center.

Next up for both of them: making a major impact on the College’s program offerings, curricula, and student work opportunities.

Yes, the salmon was sublime and the dinner-table conversation scintillating, but the award — three of them, actually — went to the two people and corporate partner inducted into the TCoE Hall of Fame during dessert.

When Kadmiel Bediako Adusei ’20 — winner of the Outstanding Young Alumni Award — left his native Ghana for the first time, it was to fly almost 5,000 miles to begin his M.S. in Environmental Engineering at the University of New Haven.

After earning his master’s degree, Adusei held positions as senior design technician with CPH Engineers and as staff engineer at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. His colleagues swiftly recognized his amazing problem-solving talent, and he became their go-to for solutions. That led to an epiphany for Adusei: “I realized what I wanted to be doing was research,” he said.

Today, Adusei is pursuing his Ph.D. at George Mason University. His current doctoral research focuses on disinfectant byproducts and perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs) in drinking water. A National Science Foundation research grant is supporting his endeavor, which could have far-reaching implications — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) are looking at associations between increased exposure to specific PFAs and increases in cholesterol levels, lower antibody response to some vaccines, changes in liver enzymes, pregnancy-induced hypertension and preeclampsia, and kidney and testicular cancer.”

Distinguished Lifetime Alumni Award winner Anil Shah ’86 M.S. became a corporate force to be reckoned with after receiving his degree. He founded MRCC, an IT solutions and staffing firm in Billerica, Massachusetts, with branches in India. Over the span of 28 years, MRCC has completed 700 projects for clients, including General Electric, Goldman Sachs, MIT, and Harvard University.

He also is a longtime friend of the college, according to Dean Ron Harichandran. “He established an endowment to support graduate students in engineering and computer science, and he participates in outreach in India to recruit engineering students. After meeting students who competed in the Mars Rover University Challenge at the Alumni Dinner, he made a generous donation to support their participation in the 2025 competition.”

RBC Bearings of Oxford received the Exemplary Partner Award. RBC President and CEO Mike Hartnett is a University alum and has, through his company, funded scholarships, building projects, and academic-excellence initiatives in mechanical engineering at the University since 2009.

Ken Giuntoli (fourth from left) surrounded by UNewHaven alumni from RBC

Left to right: President Jens Frederiksen, Viola and Stephen Tagliatela, and Dean Ron Harichandran

Completely renovating the TCoE’s civil engineering labs was one part of a three-part gift from the Tagliatela family, who are among the college’s most generous supporters and who gave the college its name in 2005.

The renovation, which comprised the creation of separate hydraulics and computational labs and sprucing up the concrete lab, was recently finished to the delight of everyone in the department and the family. The big reveal came on November 21, 2024. An upbeat ribbon-cutting ceremony marked the unveiling of the new Tagliatela Family Civil Engineering Laboratories.

The other two parts of the family’s three-part gift are already a done deal: the funding of a new chair/professorship — the Tagliatela Family Endowed Chair/Professorship in Civil Engineering — and the Tagliatela Family Scholarship in Civil Engineering.

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