College of Computing Announces New Faculty Hires

The College of Computing is pleased to announce the hiring of six new faculty members. They will all start at Michigan Tech this fall.

Briana Bettin, Computer Science and Cognitive Learning Sciences, will teach computing education courses. Bettin’s research interests span education, experiential design, and human factors. She completed her Ph.D. at Michigan Tech this spring.

Sidike Paheding, Applied Computing, will teach MERET courses. He comes to Michigan Tech from Purdue University Northwest. Paheding’s research interests include topics in image/video processing, machine learning, deep learning, computer vision, and remote sensing. He received his Ph.D. from University of Dayton, Ohio.

Junqiao Qiu, Computer Science, will teach compiler courses. His research interests are in programming systems and runtime support for parallel computing and scalable data processing. Qiu completed his Ph.D. at University of California Riverside this spring.

Ashraf Saleem, Applied Computing, will teach MERET courses. Saleem comes to Michigan Tech from Sultan Qaboos University, Oman. He received his Ph.D. at DeMontfort University, UK.

Leo Ureel, Computer Science and Cognitive Learning Sciences, will teach computing education courses. Ureel’s research focuses on a constructionist approach to introductory computer science that leverages code critiquers to motivate students to learn computer programming. Ureel completed his Ph.D. at Michigan Tech this spring.

Brian Yuan, Applied Computing and Computer Science, will teach cybersecurity courses. His research interests span the fields of deep learning, machine learning, security and privacy, and cloud computing. He received his Ph.D. from University of Florida.