People

Tarek I. Zohdi received his Ph.D. in 1997 in Computational and Applied Mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin and his Habilitation in General Mechanics (Allgemeine Mechanik) from Gottfried Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany, in 2002. He is currently a Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Chair of the Designated Emphasis Program in Computational and Data Science and Engineering, Associate Dean for Research in the College of Engineering, and holder of the W. C. Hall Family Endowed Chair in Engineering at UC Berkeley. He also holds a Faculty Scientist position at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and is Faculty Director of the Richmond Field Station.

Mark currently serves as Interim Dean in the College of Engineering, UC Berkeley, and is a faculty member in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Professor Asta joined the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Berkeley in January 2010 after serving as a staff scientist at Sandia National Laboratories and as a member of the faculties at Northwestern University and the University of California, Davis. Professor Asta has previously served as Department Chair of Materials Science and Engineering at Berkeley, Executive Associate Dean of Engineering at UC Berkeley, and Director of the Materials Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Professor Mäkiharju joined the Mechanical Engineering Department at Berkeley in January 2016. His undergraduate studies were in Energy Technology at the Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland. He earned his Mechanical Engineering M.Sc. from The Ohio State University in 2005 and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 2012. His graduate research focused on reducing hydrodynamic drag via gas injection and developing time-resolved X-ray densitometry imaging systems for multiphase flows. At Berkeley, he leads experimental research on high–Reynolds-number single- and multiphase flows using hyperspectral imaging combined with advanced data analytics.

Professor Peter Hosemann earned his Ph.D. in Materials Science from the Montanuniversität Leoben (Austria) in 2008, followed by a postdoctoral appointment at Los Alamos National Laboratory, before joining the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Professor of Nuclear Materials and former Chair of the Department of Nuclear Engineering at UC Berkeley, where he directs the Manufacturing 360 Center and the Materials Characterization Facility. He holds joint appointments in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering. His research has produced more than 300 peer-reviewed publications and includes leadership roles in major national research programs.

Basil is an expert in business process simulation, using both multi-agent modeling and system dynamics to describe complex organizational behavior. He is also a specialist in higher-education strategy, with particular expertise in designing enrollment and growth strategies for institutions operating in emerging and highly technical fields. Basil brings years of international education leadership to his role as Executive Vice President, Chief Innovation Officer, and Co-Founder at Shorelight. Basil holds a PhD in literature and philosophy from Boston University, where he also earned an MFA under the tutelage of three-time U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky.

Mark currently serves as Associate Faculty Director of Aerospace Programs in the College of Engineering, UC Berkeley; and the Vice-Chair for Master of Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Mark joined the Mechanical Engineering Department at Berkeley in August 2016. Professor Mueller received a B.Eng. in Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Pretoria in South Africa in 2008. He continued to his M.Sc. and Dr. Sc. in Mechanical Engineering at the ETH Zurich, in 2011 and 2015, respectively. Professor Mueller conducts research in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, dynamics and control; motion planning and coordination; state estimation and localization.

Thomas is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, part of the Energy Science & Technology group, and a Faculty Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the Energy Technologies Area. Prof. Schutzius joined the Mechanical Engineering Department at Berkeley in January 2023. Prior to that he was an Assistant Professor at ETH Zurich (2020-2022) where he received a prestigious ERC Starting Grant and “Golden Owl” award for excellence in teaching. Professor Schutzius received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Professor Schutzius leads the Laboratory for Multiphase Thermofluidics and Surface Nanoengineering group.

Mosalam joined the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley in 1997 where he is the Taisei Professor of Civil Engineering & Director of the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) Center. His research focuses on the performance & health monitoring of structures, assessment & rehabilitation of essential facilities, and building energy efficiency & sustainability. His work spans large-scale computational modeling & experimental testing, including hybrid simulation. He is a Corresponding Member of the Mexican Academy of Engineering in Civil Engineering and a Fellow of ASCE. He was a visiting professor at Kyoto Univ. (Japan), Middle East Technical Univ. (Türkiye) & Nanyang Technological Univ. (Singapore).

Dr. Sangid is the Reilly Professor at Purdue University in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics with a courtesy appointment in Materials Engineering, where he continues his work on building computational materials models for failure of structural materials with experimental validation efforts focused at characterization of the stress/strain evolution at the microstructural scale during in situ loading. He is a recipient of the ASME Orr, TMS Early Career Faculty Fellow, TMS Brimacombe, AIAA Associate Fellow, NSF CAREER, and the AFOSR, ONR, and DARPA Young Investigator/Faculty Awards. Dr. Sangid has started and served as the inaugural Executive Director of the Hypersonics Advanced Manufacturing Technology Center under the Purdue Applied Research Institute.

Justin Wiley is Strategy & Development Director at UC Berkeley’s Institute of Transportation Studies, and the Corporate Partnerships Strategist at the Richmond Field Station. He began his career in mobility as a student at UC Berkeley, where he co-founded Green Bike Share. In 2012, he joined the founding team at JUMP Bikes, helping to build and scale micromobility systems globally before the company’s $200M acquisition by Uber. He continued his work at Uber, expanding access to electric bikes and scooters in major cities worldwide. Justin later joined Swiftly, a public transit technology firm, where he led strategic partnerships to help agencies modernize operations through real-time data and analytics.

Behçet Açıkmeşe is a professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and Department of Mechanical Engineering at University of California, Berkeley. He was a senior technologist at JPL and a lecturer at Caltech. At JPL, he developed control algorithms for planetary landing, spacecraft formation flying, and asteroid and comet sample return missions. He developed the “flyaway” control algorithms in Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, and the reaction control system algorithms for NASA SMAP mission. Dr. Acikmese invented a novel planetary landing guidance algorithm (G-FOLD) that was flight tested by JPL, which is a first demonstration of a real-time optimization algorithm for autonomous rocket guidance and control. He is a recipient of numerous NASA Achievement awards for his contributions to NASA missions and new technology development. He is a Fellow of AIAA and IEEE.

In 2019, Mark Scott began his journey entering the the airspace of UAM. As a licensed General Building and Engineering Contractor in California, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii, Mark and his team worked closely with the Contra Costa County Division of Airports and the Federal Aviation Administration to acquire and develop the first UAM test site located in Byron, Ca. Byron Airport (C-83) was one of California’s first Part 107 Test Sites approved in the state of California under the University of Alaska, Fairbanks as a Part 107 test site. This project consisted of a 5 acre development on airport property with newly constructed hangars designed for UAM design, testing and research. The airspace area provides for testing of Cargo and logistics, Infrastructure and surveillance and smart city initiatives contributing to sustainability and efficiency goals. Currently, Mark has embarked on another site located at the Oxnard Airport (OXR) with a 7 acre site development plan underway.