UNC Charlotte engineering faculty earn recognition for academic, research and service excellence
William States Lee College of Engineering honored its top talent at the recent College Faculty Awards Ceremony, recognizing their dedication and passion inside and outside the classroom.
Tara Cavalline was awarded the Distinguished Scholar Award, a preeminent recognition in the College that recognizes colleagues for their sustained excellence and creativity in research. The level of excellence for this award is evidenced by publication, high degree of citation, external funding and recognition among peers.
Cavalline established herself as a leader in concrete infrastructure and airfield pavement research, characterized by her ability to secure significant external funding and lead high-impact initiatives. In the last three years, she has:
- Secured over $3M of research funding, including four recent FAA grants (career total >$6.4M)
- Director of the Charlotte AIR Institute, currently leading a $2 million FAA-supported runway instrumentation project as PI.
- Elected Fellow of the American Concrete Institute (ACI)
- Published 29 journal articles, 39 conference papers, five national and state-level engineering standards, a 446-page ASCE textbook, and 18 FHWA technical briefs
- Mentored 6 Ph.D., 28 MS, and 48 undergraduate research students
Sukumar Kamalsadan, who previously won the same award, was renewed at the Distinguished Scholar Award level.
Kamalasadan demonstrated sustained scholarly excellence and global leadership in power and energy systems in the past three years, including:
- Elected Fellow of the IEEE
- In Stanford/Elsevier Top 2% Scientists List for four consecutive years (2022–2025)
- Published 61 papers, including 29 journal papers and 32 conference papers
- Secured 6 external research grants with a total value > $3.2M
- Mentored 16 Ph.D. students
- Deputy Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Trans Ind Appl, IEEE PES Distinguished Lecturer, etc.
Hamed Tabkhi received renewed recognition at the Scholar Award level for his excellence through high-impact research in AI-enabled Smart Cities and Cyber-Physical Systems.
Over the past three years, his accomplishments include:
- Secured over $2.6M of new research funding, including the NSF CIVIC Challenge ($775K), the NSF PFI ($650K), and the NSF TTP ($400K)
- Published 21 journal papers and 27 conference papers since 2022
- Received over 1400 citations since 2023 (h-index=22)
- Mentored 3 postdocs, 12 PhD students
- Most Impactful Alumni Award from the College of Engineering, Northeastern University, 2025
- Invited speaker, keynotes at leading international venues
Further research excellence was recognized through the evening.
2026 Charlotte Distinguished Research Award: Sukumar Kamalasadan is a senior full-time faculty member who has demonstrated the highest level of scholarly excellence in his field.
Early Career Excellence in Research Faculty Award: Minhaj Alam demonstrated excellence in researching privacy-preserving and domain-adaptive AI for ophthalmic diagnosis.
Key accomplishments from 7/2024 – 12/2025 include:
- Secured $870K of NIH funding (R21 and R15)
- Published 9 journal papers, 2 conference papers, and 7 abstracts
- An additional 5 journal publications bring the total to 73 peer-reviewed articles
- Supervised 5 Ph.D. students, 2 MS students, and 8 undergraduate students
Teaching and Service Excellence Awards were presented to high-achieving faculty.
Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award:
Artur Wolek was recognized for leading the establishment of a new Aerospace Engineering Concentration within the B.S. in Mechanical Engineering program.
Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award:
Dipankar Maity was recognized for innovating his course delivery by creating a library of “YouTube-style” prerequisite videos and modularized lecture recordings.
Faculty Service Award:
Austin Fifield was recognized for extraordinary service contributions through K–12 outreach and community engagement, particularly through his long-standing involvement with FIRST Robotics.
Patents and Trademarks issued in 2025 were recognized as wellz:
- Inventor: James E. Amburgey. Title: Separation Media, Devices and Applications Thereof “ U.S. Patent: 12,128,394
- Inventor: Sukumar Kamalasadan. Title: Grid Ancillary Service with Uninterruptible Power Supply. U.S. Patent: 11,984,759
- Inventor: Madhav Manjrekar Title: Apparatus and method for controlling one or more inverters Patent: 12,199,441
- Inventor: Yong Zhang. Title: Integrated circuits with single-functional-unit level integration of electronic and photonic elements” Patent:12,354,650. “Hexacoordinate pincer complexes and applications thereof” Patent:12,408,546
- Inventors: James Gafford and Babak Parkhideh. Title: On-state voltage measurement of high-side and low-side power transistors in a half-bridge for in-situ prognostics. U.S. Patent: 12,320,829
Written by Meenakshi Nair ’27