Faculty
Dr. Vikram Kapila (Principal Investigator)
Prof., Mech. Eng., NYU Poly
Dr. Vikram Kapila is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Polytechnic Institute, Brooklyn, NY, where he directs an NSF funded Web-Enabled Mechatronics and Process Control Remote Laboratory, an NSF funded Research Experience for Teachers Site in Mechatronics, and an NSF funded GK-12 Fellows project. He promotes NASA relevant projects to undergraduate and graduate students as an affiliate director of the New York Space Grant Consortium.
He has held visiting positions with the Air Force Research Laboratories in Dayton, OH. His research interests are in linear and nonlinear control, aerospace control applications, and mechatronics. He received Polytechnic's 2002 and 2008 Jacob's Excellence in Education Award and 2003 Distinguished Teacher Award. In 2004, he was selected for a three-year term as a Senior Faculty Fellow of Polytechnic's Othmer Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies. His scholarly activities have included one edited book, 4 chapters in edited books, 1 book review, 39 journal articles, and 88 conference papers. Moreover, he has mentored 67 high school students, 86 high school teachers, 21 undergraduate summer interns, and 11 undergraduate capstone-design teams, and graduated seven M.S. and four Ph.D. students.
Dr. Magued G. Iskander (Co-Principal Investigator)
Prof., Civil Eng., Poly
Dr. Magued Iskander, Professor of Civil Engineering, is the PI of the WISE project and a Co-PI of the RAISE project; and co-directs Polytechnic's Stress Lab. He has mentored seven high school students, 20 K-12 teachers, nine undergraduate students, 25 M.S. students, and five Ph.D. students. He is a recipient of the Chi-Epsilon Metropolitan Section Excellence in Teaching Award, Polytechnic's 2002 Distinguished Teacher Award, 2006 Jacobs Excellence in Education Award for developing a course titled Instrumentation, Monitoring, and Condition Assessment of Civil Infrastructure, an NSF Career Grant, a Federal Highway Administration Grant, and several industrial and local grants. He has also attended several teaching workshops and has been a faculty advisor for six undergraduate executive scholars and the Polytechnic Student Chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineering.
Dr. Noel N. Kriftcher (Co-Principal Investigator)
Dir., Packard Center, Poly
Dr. Noel Kriftcher, Industry Professor of Humanities and Director of the David Packard Center, is serving as a Co-PI on this project. Prof. Kriftcher has been instrumental in facilitating interactions with high schools. He is an education expert with more than three decades of experience in public secondary education as a teacher, assistant principal, high school principal, and superintendent of Brooklyn and Staten Island School district. As a former teacher, Dr. Kriftcher has extensive experience with high school curricula. Among his current initiatives is a Lucent Technologies Foundation grant to assist Brooklyn Technical High School to align its curriculum with modern engineering curricula and approaches. For this proposal, Dr. Kriftcher has brought the participating schools together with the university, and has engaged the PIs, principals, teachers, and superintendents to develop the curriculum reform described herein. He guides the program's progress by working with the AMPS/CBRI Fellows to supervise them; helping to plan the annual training workshop, career day workshop, and professional development day; and working with teachers and Principals to ensure appropriate assignment of Fellows.
Dr. Dariusz Czarkowski (Senior Personnel)
Assoc. Prof., Elect. Eng., Poly
Dr. Dariusz Czarkowski, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has supervised 9 students under the NSF REU program and numerous undergraduate senior projects. He has also mentored 7 Ph.D. students, 12 M.S. students, and several high-school students.
Dr. Rastislav Levicky (Senior Personnel)
Asst. Prof., Ch. & Biol. Eng., Poly
Dr. Rastislav Levicky, Associate Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, directs the Biointerfacial Engineering Lab at Polytechnic. NIH and NSF projects in his group focus on biomolecular interactions and have supported 4 postdoctoral fellows, 8 Ph.D., 10 M.S., 25 undergraduate, and 5 high school students, and 4 high school teachers.
Dr. Maurizio Porfiri (Senior Personnel)
Asst. Prof., Mech. Eng., Poly
Dr. Maurizio Porifiri, Assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, specializes in dynamical systems theory and mechanics of advanced materials with applications to underwater systems. Currently, he is conducting and supervising research in the areas of dynamical systems theory, mathematical control theory, mechanics of advanced materials, and underwater robotics.Porfiri received his Master of Science and PhD degrees in Engineering Mechanics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 2000 and 2006, respectively. He also holds the Laurea degree in Electrical Engineering (with honors) from the University of Rome "La Sapienza" (2001) and a PhD (dual degree program) in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from the University of Rome "La Sapienza" and the University of Toulon, Toulon, France (2005). He has coauthored over 50 journal articles, 40 conference papers and presentations, as well as numerous invited lectures. He is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Honors Center of Italian Universities, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the Society of Engineering Science, and the SPIE-International Society for Optical Engineering.