Page 8 - CEGE Magazine Fall 2023

NEWFACULTY
Michelle Anderson, CEGE’s Industry & Pre-Major Coordinator, led the effort to develop new recruiting images and messaging to attract and retain new students. Ninety-eight students enrolled
for fall 2023 with a first choice major in CEGE. That is up from 70 in fall 2022.
These new faculty are part of a group of 26 who will be joining the College of Science and Engineering this year. They are part of the College’s push to hire 60 new faculty in the next three years.
EBRAHIM SHEMSHADIAN is a teaching faculty, teaching courses in Structural Engineering: Design
of Wood Buildings, and Masonry Structures. Shemshadian earned
his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at the University of Minnesota in 2020, advised by Art Schultz and Jia-Liang Le. Since then he worked as a Structural EIT at BKV Group
(2020-2021) and as an R&D Scientist at MiTek, Inc.
Two additional new hires will join the department in January 2024.
SEONGJIN CHOI is an incoming assistant professor in the transportation group. He received his bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. He was a postdoctoral researcher at McGill University. His work involves using data analytics to draw valuable insights from urban mobility data
and applying cutting-edge AI technologies in the field of transportation.
BENJAMIN (BEN) WORSFOLD, P.E., is an assistant professor in the structures group. His research interests lie in large-scale structural testing, finite element analysis of reinforced concrete structures, and anchoring to concrete. Worsfold earned his master’s and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and bachelor’s from the University of Costa Rica. He is licensed in both California and Costa Rica.
PEDRAM MORTAZAVI will join as
an assistant professor in January. He is a licensed structural engineer in Canada. His interests lie in structural resilience, steel structures, large-scale testing, development of damping and isolation systems, advanced simulation methods, and hybrid simulation. Mortazavi holds a bachelor’s from the University of Science and Culture in Iran, a master’s from Carleton University in Ottawa, and a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto.
8 CEGE | CSE.UMN.EDU/CEGE