With research interests such as artificial intelligence, early cancer diagnosis, materials science and retrofit methods of aging structures, this year’s incoming faculty members exhibit a wide range of engineering expertise. Learn more about them below:
Fabrizio Bisetti
What are your favorite hobbies?
Swimming and reading are two of my most cherished activities besides spending time with my wife and children.
Grani Hanasusanto
What are your favorite hobbies?
I enjoy sports and outdoor activities. I used to play soccer a lot but nowadays I run for exercise. I recently started to take great pleasure in hiking after spending a year in the stunningly beautiful Switzerland.
Derek Haas
What are your favorite hobbies?
Cooking and eating good food, boating and spending time in the country enjoying nature.
Brandon Jones
What are your favorite hobbies?
Traveling to foreign countries, learning something new about a topic I know very little about and spending time with family and friends.
Benjamin Keith Keitz
What are your favorite hobbies?
Reading, soccer, sketching and graphic design.
Benjamin Leibowicz
What are your favorite hobbies?
Some of the activities I enjoy doing in my spare time are traveling, hiking, photography, soccer and trivia.
Zoltan Nagy
What are your favorite hobbies?
I enjoy spending time with my family and playing soccer.
Juan Murcia-Delso
What are your favorite hobbies?
Hiking, soccer, reading and swimming with my kids.
Shelly Sakiyama-Elbert
What are your favorite hobbies?
Reading and knitting. In reality, I spend most of my free time watching my kids play sports and practice music.
Polina Sela
What are your favorite hobbies?
I enjoy reading, traveling and spending time with my family.
Andrea Thomaz
What are your favorite hobbies?
I play piano, enjoy dance classes, especially modern ballet, and I do many, many art projects with my two kids.
Edison Thomaz
What are your favorite hobbies?
I love living in Austin and enjoying all the city has to offer: food, music and the outdoors. You can always find me and my family by the lake, at Barton Springs or visiting many of the city parks. But every now and then we also get to travel and discover new places, whether around the world or hidden in Central Texas.
Daniel Wasserman
What are your favorite hobbies?
I enjoy spending time with my family, cooking and being outdoors. I also enjoy the opera, and if I have the time, I will pick up my banjo or mandolin and hack away at some bluegrass I have no business trying to play.
Thomas Yankeelov
What are your favorite hobbies?
I have an amazing family and absolutely adore being with them; my wife (also a UT Austin faculty member) and I like doing just about anything with our two little children. I especially enjoy coaching their youth sports teams and having Friday movie nights that heavily feature princesses and dinosaurs.