As the technology industry grows each year, so does the need for experts who create innovations that fuel this sector and educate the workforce that powers it.
With this demand in mind, UCF’s College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS) has broken a hiring record with a total of 39 new faculty members joining the college’s seven departments in Fall 2025. This marks the third consecutive academic year that CECS has appointed more than 30 new faculty members, although it’s the first time this many have started in one semester.
The new professors, instructors and lecturers bring a wide range of expertise to the college, ranging from artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity to hypersonics and semiconductors. Michael Georgiopoulos, dean of CECS, says the new faculty’s breadth of knowledge aligns with the university’s strategic plan and enhances its reputation.
“The College of Engineering and Computer Science has hired several faculty members in the areas of AI, energy, digital twins and hypersonics, among others,” Georgiopoulos says. “It has expanded the college’s research and educational expertise in areas that are of national importance and are in line with UCF’s vision of being Florida’s Premier Engineering and Technology University.”
Nearly half of the CECS new hires are under the Department of Computer Science, which is growing its student population and supporting the university’s AI hiring initiative and the newly formed Institute of Artificial Intelligence led by Professor Mubarak Shah.
“The Department of Computer Science welcomes a record-breaking number of 19 new faculty – 12 tenured and tenure-track faculty members and seven lecturers,” says Damla Turgut, the department chair. “This reflects both the growing research potential of the department as well as our commitment to support our growing student population. The research faculty bring expertise across key areas of computer science such as AI – six of the new faculty were hired as part of the UCF Institute of Artificial Intelligence – digital twin technologies, bioinformatics and software engineering.” A total of eight new faculty are UCF alums, with three who graduated this past summer. Ali Gordon, the dean of graduate affairs, attributes this to the quality of the college’s graduates.
“In recent hiring cycles, applications for faculty positions here in CECS have been very high,” Gordon says. “Landing a professor or lecturer role here is more challenging every year. The success that our alumni have exhibited in attaining positions here speaks to the excellence of our college and its programs.”
The college is expected to bring aboard five additional faculty members in the spring semester, bringing the total number of new hires for the academic year to 44. Learn more about the computer science hires below.
Ali Al Kinoon ’25PhD
Lecturer
Al Kinoon returns to UCF after earning a doctoral degree in computer science this past summer. Al Kinoon’s focus is Android security and privacy, particularly in the context of mobile app permissions, policy transparency and malware detection. Al Kinoon’s work integrates natural language processing and machine learning to enhance user awareness and strengthen app ecosystem security. Al Kinoon has contributed to several research projects, including the development of large-scale Android datasets and frameworks for analyzing privacy policies.
Gerd Bruder
Associate Professor
Bruder brings an expertise in extended reality, including augmented reality and virtual reality, to UCF. He earned his doctoral degree in computer science from the University of Munster in Germany and has completed several research experiences at European academic institutions. His research focuses on human factors, human-computer interaction, modeling and simulation, and digital twins for healthcare, military, architecture and visualization purposes.
Yu Fu
Assistant Professor
At UCF, Fu will lead the Designing Interactive and Intelligent Data Lab. His research spans data visualization and human-computer interaction, with a focus on improving how people analyze, communicate and consume data. He designs and develops interactive systems, visualization techniques, and authoring tools that support data storytelling and foster critical thinking in data-rich environments. His work combines empirical studies, visual and interaction design, and system building to understand how people engage with data in real-world settings and to inform the development of more effective tools and representations. He is also interested in applying his research in domains such as sports analytics, journalism and digital twin systems. He earned his doctoral degree in human-centered computing from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Shahram Jahani
Lecturer
Jahani brings a research background in high-performance computing, cryptography and number theory-based public-key systems to UCF. His work focuses on the design and optimization of mathematical frameworks to enhance the efficiency and security of cryptographic algorithms. He is also the originator of the ZOT-Binary and ZOT-MK number systems, developed to improve big-integer multiplication and cryptographic operations. He earned his doctoral and master’s degrees in computer science from the Universiti Sains Malaysia, with research centered on computational mathematics and security. Prior to his academic work, Jahani spent over a decade in the industrial sector.
Jie Lin ’25PhD
Lecturer
Prior to joining UCF, Lin held roles as a full-stack software developer and manager, overseeing various business operations ranging from small merchandise trading to real estate investments. He earned his doctoral degree in computer science from UCF, his master’s degree in computer science from Emory University and his bachelor’s degree in computer science from Ursinus College. His research focuses on security, privacy, vulnerability analysis, and applications of large language models and deep learning. Lin is passionate about creating collaborative, engaging educational environments that emphasize critical thinking and practical problem-solving skills to equip students for success in computer science and cybersecurity fields.
Wu Lin
Assistant Professor
Lin joins UCF as a member of IAI. His research bridges computer science, statistics and mathematics to develop novel, implementable algorithms for numerical optimization and probabilistic inference, as well as to advance the theoretical foundations of AI. He earned his doctoral degree in computer science from the University of British Columbia, in 2023. Prior to joining UCF, he was a distinguished postdoctoral fellow at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Canada and worked as a technical staff member at the RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project in Japan.
Kirill Medvedev
Assistant Professor
Growing up in Siberia’s Akademgorodok, which literally translates to “Academic Town,” it’s no surprise that Medvedev pursued a career in academia. The scientific environment sparked his curiosity in biology and led him to pursue a master’s degree in bioinformatics at Novosibirsk State University and a doctoral degree in mathematical biology and bioinformatics from the Institute of Cytology and Genetics. He then joined the lab of Professor Nick Grishin at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, where he served as a postdoctoral scholar. His research interests include computational biology, bioinformatics, structural biology, drug delivery and digital pathology.
Kevin Pfeil ’10 ’13MS ’21PHD
Lecturer
A three-time alum, Pfeil joins UCF from the University of North Florida, where he worked as an assistant professor. He previously worked as a web developer for a municipal government and as an applications developer for an aerospace company. As he returns to his alma mater, Pfeil aims to provide a world-class education to his students. He earned a bachelor’s in information technology, and a master’s and doctoral degree in computer science from UCF.
Corey Pittman ’21PHD
Lecturer
Pittman joins UCF from the University of North Florida, where he served as an assistant professor. Pittman’s professional experience includes contributing to camera backend systems at Snap Inc. and working on intelligent tutoring systems and image-based tools at Soar Technology Inc. He also gained research experience at Microsoft Research, focusing on streamlining control schemes for consumer drones. He earned his doctoral degree in computer science from UCF. His research focuses on human-computer interaction, specifically the areas of augmented reality, novel input techniques and pattern recognition.
Md Mahfuzur Rahaman ’22MS ’25PhD
Lecturer
Rahaman also returned to UCF after earning a doctoral degree and a master’s degree in computer science. He previously served as a faculty member at the Shahjalal University of Science and Technology in Bangladesh and worked as a software engineer for Nilavo Technologies Limited. He’s also served as a trainer for the International Collegiate Programming Contest. His research interests include computational biology and bioinformatics.
Yuzhang Shang
Assistant Professor
Shang joins UCF with a doctoral degree in computer science from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He was awarded the MLCommons Rising Star Award earlier this year and has interned at Google DeepMind and Cisco Research. His research focuses on efficient and scalable AI, machine learning and computer vision. He was hired as a member of the IAI.
Ali Siahkoohi
Assistant Professor
Siahkoohi hails from Rice University, where he previously worked as a Simons Postdoctoral Fellows. He received his doctoral degree in computational science and engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2022. His research focuses on designing scalable methods for quantifying uncertainty in artificial intelligence models, with a broader goal of enhancing AI reliability.
Shashank Sonkar
Assistant Professor
Sonkar joins UCF as a member of the IAI. His research focuses on understanding and advancing the reasoning capabilities of large language models, as well as the computational modeling of human learning and cognition. This work underpins the development of next-generation personalization technologies across multiple fields, with education as a primary domain of impact.
Yu Tian
Assistant Professor
Tian joins the Department of Computer Science with a joint appointment in the Department of Clinical Sciences in the College of Medicine. He was hired as a member of the IAI will manage the AI and Imaging Medicine Lab. Tian’s expertise is in computer vision and machine learning and their applications in the biomedical domain. He previously worked as a postdoctoral scholar at both Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to that, her earned his doctoral degree and his undergraduate degree in computer science from the Australian Institute for Machine Learning in Adelaide, Australia.
Rohith Venkatakrishnan
Assistant Professor
Venkatakrishnan studies people’s experiences of using immersive virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies. He broadly aims to understand and enhance aspects related to the user experience of these technologies, exploring how to deploy them in effective, impactful and ethical ways. His research spans a wide range of extended reality topics, including perception and cognition, cybersickness, inputs and interactions, self-avatars, artificially intelligent agents, social applications and tangible integration.
Roshan Venkatakrishnan
Assistant Professor
Rohith’s twin brother Roshan focuses on human-centered extended reality technologies spanning virtual, augmented and mixed reality. His research explores how people perceive, interact and behave in these immersive mediums, with interests in avatars, artificially intelligent virtual humans and agents, cybersickness, inputs, 3D user interfaces and embodied interaction. Through interdisciplinary collaborations, he designs extended reality systems that make virtual experiences more meaningful, intuitive and impactful.
Song Wang
Assistant Professor
Song Wang joins UCF from the University of Virginia, where he earned his doctoral degree. His research focuses on the generalization and robustness of machine learning algorithms in novel scenarios, including generalization to new tasks, shifted data distributions and unseen classes. He also explores interdisciplinary applications of his work in scientific domains such as bioinformatics and neuroscience. He is also a member of the IAI.
Zhenyi Wang
Assistant Professor
Wang earned his doctoral degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo. His research focus is trustworthy AI, continual learning and data-efficient learning. At UCF, he manages the Adaptive, Efficient and Trustworthy AI Lab is a member of the IAI.
Aashish Yadavally
Assistant Professor
Yadavally’s research lies at the intersection of AI and software engineering, with a focus on optimizing software development processes for enhancing software security. He earned his doctoral degree in computer science from the University of Texas at Dallas and a master’s degree in AI from the University of Georgia. At UCF, he leads the Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence Research Lab. His long-term vision is to establish and advance scalable, AI-assisted development workflows that support secure and reliable software engineering.
- Written by Marisa Ramiccio