2025 Faculty Recognition: NYU Tandon Honors Its Professors at Every Stage
Embarking on an Academic Career
The letter arrives with a life-changing message. "We are pleased to offer you a position . . . " After years of graduate work, of proving themselves in the lab, and of publishing in peer-reviewed journals, they've been entrusted with something profound: shaping future engineers at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering.
And one day soon, at the MetroTech center, students will file in, some from New York City neighborhoods and others from around the globe, all drawn to Tandon's reputation for educating the tech leaders of the future.
But, for many new faculty members, teaching is only part of the calling. Their research will take shape methodically. Grant proposals are written and revised. Equipment is ordered and calibrated. Graduate students arrive at the door, brilliant and seeking guidance on problems that don't yet have solutions.
This year, well over a dozen new faculty members joined the Tandon community, and most were in attendance at a festive event held in November to welcome and honor them.
Each is working on one of the areas that have been identified as key to NYU's vast science and technology enterprise — responsible AI and embodied intelligence to bioengineering, quantum information sciences and materials science, urban resilience and complex systems engineering, and emerging technologies at the intersection of engineering and the arts — and each is reshaping their respective field.
Read more about the start of their Tandon journeys.
Well-Deserved Promotions . . .
The event also celebrated professors who had received new titles as they progress through the academic ranks from assistant to associate professor, and then on to the pinnacle of full professor (an honor recently accorded to Siddharth Garg, Davood Shahrjerdi, and Ludovic Righetti). Others, including David Fouhey and Christopher Musco, earned the rank of Institute Associate Professor, bestowed in recognition of their significant accomplishments in research, teaching, and service, and the expectation that they will become leaders in their professional fields.
They can attest that the years accumulate in unexpected ways. Time is measured not in months but in graduating classes, in research projects completed, in the evolution of courses as understanding deepens about what students need to know. Former students may email from positions across New York's thriving tech sector, from research institutions worldwide, and from startups they've launched themselves. Some might occasionally stop by the Brooklyn campus to talk about the bridges they're designing, the systems they're optimizing, the problems they're solving . . . Faculty members come to realize that their work has contributed to the world in ways they might never have imagined.
. . . and Well-Deserved Awards
At Tandon, formal affirmation comes annually, from colleagues who understand the difficulty and importance of the work.
Research Awards
An Excellence in Research Award, which celebrates senior faculty members for truly significant and sustained accomplishments, went to Kaan Ozbay — a Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering, an affiliated faculty member of our Center for Urban Science & Progress (CUSP), and the Founding Director of NYU’s C2SMART University Transportation Center — for profoundly advancing our understanding of complex urban mobility challenges and for making innovative contributions to areas like traffic modeling, incident management, and the application of AI in smart cities.
Another Excellence in Research Award went to Theodore “Ted” Rappaport, Tandon’s David Lee/Ernst Weber Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Founding Director of NYU WIRELESS, Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, and Member of the National Academy of Engineering. The award recognized him for groundbreaking research that has been instrumental in shaping the landscape of modern wireless communications, particularly in demonstrating the viability of millimeter-wave technology for 5G and beyond.
The Junior Faculty Research Award is presented to a tenure-track Assistant Professor to honor their notable research accomplishments, as demonstrated by publications in top-tier venues, funded research proposals, student mentoring, and recognition by professional societies. Daniel Vignon, who leads the Laboratory for the Economic Analysis of Transportation Systems (FEATS) and is also a faculty member of C2SMART, received this year's award. His work informs the design, regulation, and operations of emerging mobility services, and he is helping make NYU Tandon an ever-more-important hub of transportation-related research.
Teaching Awards
Industry Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Nikita Grigoryev received the 2025 Distinguished Teacher Award for the consistently positive feedback he receives from those in his courses, his high instructor evaluations, the mentoring he enthusiastically provides to students at all levels, and his tireless efforts to improve every aspect of the Tandon experience, while the 2025 Jacobs Excellence in Education Award, aimed at recognizing and fostering innovation and excellence in teaching, went to Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Rose Faghih for her unwavering commitment and her development of inclusive and interactional strategies. Industry
Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Rakesh Behera received the Dean's Award for Excellence in Online Education, given to instructors who have demonstrated excellence through personal commitment to students and the development and delivery of innovative online education material.
Inclusive Excellence Award
Elizabeth Hénaff — an assistant professor in Tandon’s Department of Technology, Culture, and Society — received the Inclusive Excellence Award for Faculty for demonstrating inclusive leadership and manifesting the ideals of diversity, belonging, and equity through research and scholarship, creative work, teaching, mentoring, and/or service.
These awards matter not for ego but because they represent the judgment of peers who have walked similar paths, who know what it takes to maintain excellence in both teaching and research over many years. Each recognition is also a reminder of responsibility, to the students who deserve continued dedication, to the field that depends on rigorous inquiry, to NYU Tandon and its mission of technology in service to society.
Careers Well Spent
As retirement approaches, there is time for reflection on what has been constant through all the changes — the technological advances, the shifting research priorities, the evolution of the discipline, even Tandon's own transformation and deepening integration with NYU.
This year, two long-serving professors announced their retirements: Anne Ronan and Fred Strauss.
The November event culminated with tributes to the two, with Senior Vice Dean Eray Aydil remarking, “Anne, what you have built over the years — through classes that may have started earlier than you would have liked, late-night grading, countless office hours, and the sometimes difficult work of mentorship — has been extraordinary.” He continued, saying, “The impact of Fred’s work is evident in every young scholar he mentored and every enterprise he supported. The questions he encouraged students to ask and the standards of excellence he modeled will echo forward in ways he may never fully realize.”
What is remembered long after a career comes to a close are the types of things Aydil alludes to: sitting with a struggling student until a concept clicks, guiding a young researcher through their first significant project ... the gratification has always been in this transmission of knowledge and capability from one generation to the next.
And the deepest satisfaction of an academic career becomes clear: not in what has been accomplished individually, but in what has been made possible for others.
