Seventeen new faculty members have joined the Faculty of Science during the past two years.

Readers of yesterday’s DailyNews met six members from a range of departments and backgrounds. Today will introduce the other five latest hires.

These faculty members are joining as teaching intensive assistant professors in the Masters of Applied Computing (MAC) program in the School of Computer Science: Shafaq Khan, Prashanth Cheluvasai Ranga, Aznam Yacoub, Shaoquan Jiang, and Kalyani Selvarajah.

“Addition of these teaching intensive faculty positions is greatly helping the School of Computer Science in properly managing the master’s in applied computing program,” says Imran Ahmad, acting director of the School of Computer Science.

“All of these faculty members are teaching core MAC courses and supervising projects in their field of specialization.”

Dr. Khan’s current interests are in databases, artificial intelligence, data analytics, and digital transformations. Previously, she has taught at the Zayed University and University of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and has received several awards, including for “Excellence in Teaching,” “Best Conference Presentation,” and “Best Faculty.”

With more than 20 years of teaching experience in universities across the U.S., India and Canada, Dr. Ranga’s teaching and expertise include high-performance computing, systems programming, algorithms, operating systems, and database design.

Dr. Yacoub’s work is grounded at the intersection of cognitive science, cognitive computing, multimedia, and software engineering. He is focusing on modelling the human mind and creating a computing system simulating awareness and consciousness.

Dr. Selvarajah previously worked in the broad area of social network analysis and knowledge graph analysis at the University of Windsor. Her expertise is in team formation, link prediction, and information retrieval using deep learning and machine learning.

Dr. Jiang’s expertise is in security protocol, network security, blockchain, quantum and post-quantum security, and cybersecurity education. His current work involves quantum-security analysis of multi-signature payment method for the blockchain; he is also collaborating on the QKD security project.

“These diverse teaching intensive positions will see the new professors use their unique expertise to build capacity in the various areas of their teaching,” says interim dean of science, Dora Cavallo-Medved. “In addition, this creates new and exciting experiential learning opportunities for students in partnership with our faculty.”