The Coordinating Committee advises ICDS leadership on prioritization of activities such as co-hiring, seed funding, internal development of centers, and training and education. This group includes faculty and IT professionals from across the university.
Meet the ICDS Team
Coordinating Committee
Kofi Adu
- Associate Professor of Physics
- ICDS Associate
Department: Physics
Office: 103C Sheetz Family Health Center, Penn State Altoona
Email: cxa269@psu.edu
Phone: 814-940-3335
Research Focuses: Computation and simulation at nanoscale of interfacial effects on properties of composites; using nanoscale interfacial engineering to enhance properties of ultraconductors
Charles Ammon
- Professor of Geoscience
- ICDS Associate
Department: Geosciences
Office: 440 Deike Building, University Park
Email: charlesammon@psu.edu
Phone: 814-865-2310
Research Focuses: The earthquake process, Earth's interior, seismic observations
Asad Azemi
- Associate Professor of Engineering
- ICDS Associate
Department: Electrical & Computer Engineering
Office: Tomezsko Classroom Building, 207 L, Penn State Brandywine
Email: azemi@psu.edu
Phone: 610-892-1421
Research Focuses: Signal modeling and estimation, intelligent systems, computational biology, bioinformatics, chaos
Orfeu Buxton
- Professor of Biobehavioral Health
- ICDS Associate
Department: Biobehavioral Health
Office: 206 Biobehavioral Health Building, University Park
Email: omb104@psu.edu
Phone: 814-867-5707
Research Focuses: Causes of sleep deficiency, health consequences of sleep deficiency, biomarkers
Guangqing Chi
- Professor of Rural Sociology and Demography and Public Health Sciences
- ICDS Associate
Department: Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education
Office: 112E Armsby Building, University Park
Email: gchi@psu.edu
Phone: 814-63-8245
Research Focuses: Climate change, land use, and community resilience; critical infrastructure/transportation, population change, and population health within the smart cities framework; computational and spatial analysis; spatial demography
Sy-Miin Chow
- Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Studies
- ICDS Associate
Department: Human Development and Family Studies
Office: 409 BBH Building, University Park
Email: symiin@psu.edu
Phone: 814-867-2131
Research Focuses: Longitudinal and dynamic models, differential equation models, time series models, state-space models, emotion, aging, child development, family dynamics, prevention
Doug Cowen
- Professor of Physics
- Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics
- ICDS Associate
Department: Physics, Astronomy and Astrophysics
Office: 104 Davey Laboratory, University Park
Email: cowen@phys.psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-5943
Research Focuses: Particle astrophysics, neutrinos, neutrino detection
Ismaila Dabo
- Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
- ICDS Associate
Department: Materials Science and Engineering
Office: N-241 Millennium Science Complex, University Park
Email: dabo@matse.psu.edu
Phone: 814-867-4886
Research Focuses: Energy conversion and storage, computational materials science, quantum and multiscale simulations, novel computational methods, materials for electrochemistry, materials for photochemistry, spectroscopy of materials
Seth Erickson
- Software Curation Librarian
- ICDS Associate
Department: University Libraries
Office: Research Informatics and Publishing
Email: sre53@psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-1580
Research Focuses: Open Science, Scientific Computing, Science and Technology Studies
Jenni Evans
- Professor of Meteorology
- Director, Institute for Computational and Data Sciences
- ICDS Associate
Department: Meteorology and Atmospheric Science
Office: 509 Walker Building, University Park
Email: Jenni.Evans@psu.edu
Phone: 814-865-3240
Research Focuses: Climate, numerical weather prediction, tropical meteorology, tropical cyclones, statistical meteorology, convection studies
Stephen Fast
- Cyber Innovation Strategy Lead
- ICDS Associate
Department: Applied Research Laboratory
Office: 5300A ARL Building, University ParkElectromagnetic Propagation, Radio Meteorology, RF Modeling and Simulation, EM Computational Techniques, Numerical Modeling, Software Engineering
Email: saf8@psu.edu
Phone: 814-865-2425
Research Focuses: Electromagnetic propagation, radio meteorology, RF modeling and simulation, EM computational techniques, numerical modeling, software engineering
Wayne Figurelle
- Assistant Director
Office: 224D Computer Building
Email: wfigure@psu.edu
Phone: 814-777-2965
Karen Fisher-Vanden
- Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics
- ICDS Associate
Department: Agricultural Economics
Office: 113 Armsby Building, University Park
Email: kaf26@psu.edu
Phone: 814-867-2752
Research Focuses: Economic and integrated assessment modeling for climate change policy analysis; economic instruments for pollution control; technology development in developing countries and implications for energy use and carbon emissions
Eric Ford
- Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics
- ICDS Co-hire
Department: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Office: 428A Davey Laboratory, University Park
Email: ebf11@psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-5558
Research Focuses: Extrasolar planetary systems, planet formation and orbital evolution, detection & characterization of exoplanets, astrobiology, astrostatistics, cyberscience & high-performance scientific computing
C. Lee Giles
- Professor of Computer Science and Engineering
- Professor of Supply Chain and Information Systems
- Professor of Information Sciences and Technology
- ICDS Associate
Department: College of Information Sciences and Technology
Office: 311A IST Building, University Park
Email: giles@ist.psu.edu
Phone: 814-865-7884
Research Focuses: Information retrieval, knowledge extraction and management, and data mining, both for large and small data and information resources
Ryan Gilmore
- Technical Director
Office: 224F Computer Building
Email: reg159@psu.edu
Phone: 814-865-1134
Rick Gilmore
- Professor of Psychology
- ICDS Associate
Department: Psychology
Office: 622 Moore Building, University Park
Email: rogilmore@psu.edu
Phone: 814-865-3664
Research Focuses: Computational neuroscience, computer vision, data visualization
Susan Hafenstein
- Professor of Medicine, Microbiology, and Immunology
- ICDS Associate
Department: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Office: 500 University Drive, C6862, Penn State Hershey Medical Center
Email: shafenstein@psu.edu
Phone: 717-531-0003
Research Focuses: Cryo-electron microscopy (CryoEM); viral infectivity, tropism, evolution, and pathogenicity
Kathleen Hill
- Assistant Professor of Education
- Associate Director, Center for Science and the Schools
- ICDS Associate
Department: Curriculum and Instruction
Office: 182 Chambers Building
Email: kathyhill@psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-2275
Research Focuses: The development of science and engineering; preparing teachers to incorporate computer science and computational thinking into the K-12 classroom; integrating supercomputer clusters in secondary schools
Michael Hillman
- Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering
- ICDS Associate
Department: Civil and Environmental Engineering
Office: 224A Sackett Buliding, University Park
Email: mzh226@psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-0623
Research Focuses: Computational mechanics; extreme events modeling
James Houck
- Distinguished Scholar in Residence, Penn State Law
- ICDS Associate
Office: 0235 Lewis Katz Building
Email: jwh32@psu.edu
Phone: 814-865-4294
Research Focuses: International and domestic cyber law issues relating to U.S. national security; the international law of armed conflict
Yifei Huang
- Assistant Professor of Biology
- ICDS Associate
Department: Biology
Office: 514A Wartik
Email: yuh371@psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-6829
Research Focuses: Millions of genetic variants have been identified in human genomes and the catalog of genetic variation is still expanding rapidly due to the continual drop of sequencing costs. Understanding the functional, clinical, and evolutionary significance of genetic variants has become a central question in biology and precision medicine. However, it is very challenging to distinguish important variants from neutral ones. Therefore, many genetic variants in patients’ genomes are marked as “variant of uncertain significance”, forming a major hurdle for both basic research and medical practice. I am interested in addressing the problem of “variant of uncertain significance” by unifying evolutionary biology and machine learning. My research is motivated by the insight that evolution operates like a high-throughput mutagenesis experiments: deleterious mutations are quickly purged from populations due to natural selection, which in turn leaves detectable marks on human genomic sequences. I have developed multiple machine learning and statistical frameworks to identify the signatures of deleterious variants from population and functional genomic data. Not only have these computational methods provided useful insights into human evolution but also have been applied to prioritize causal variants associated with human genetic disorders.
Mahmut Kandemir
- Professor of Computer Science and Engineering
- Director of Graduate Affairs
- ICDS Associate
Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Office: 354C Information Science and Technology Building, University Park
Email: kandemir@cse.psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-4888
Research Focuses: Embedded systems, programming languages, compilers, power-aware computing, dependable computing, input/output systems
Maurie Kelly
- Senior Research Associate, Penn State Institutes of the Environment
- Director of Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access and Informatics
- ICDS Associate
Department: Institute for Energy and the Environment
Office: 0117 Land and Water Research, University Park
Email: mck4@psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-0104
Research Focuses: Managing and providing public access to data, supporting public access to government information, the intersection of big data and citizen science
Daniel Kifer
- Professor of Computer Science and Engineering
- ICDS Associate
Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Office: 360 IST Building, University Park
Email: dkifer@cse.psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-1187
Research Focuses: Machine learning applications in areas such as statistical privacy, security, databases, streaming data processing, text modeling, deep learning, and computational social science
Alexander Klippel
- Professor of Geography
- ICDS Co-hire
Department: Geography
Office: 204 Walker Building, University Park
Email: klippel@psu.edu
Phone: 814-865-2324
Research Focuses: visualizing climate change; immersive analytics; designing environmental decision support systems; immersive learning; storytelling in 360 degrees; digital humanities; place; spatial cognition; wayfinding; embodiment
Abdullah Konak
- Professor of Information Science and Technology
- ICDS Associate
Department: Information Sciences and Technology
Office: 212 Gaige Building, Penn State Berks
Email: konak@psu.edu
Phone: 610-396-6310
Research Focuses: Modeling, analysis, and optimization of complex systems using computational intelligence combined with techniques from statistics, operations research, and machine learning
Soundar Kumara
- Allen E. Pearce and Allen M. Pearce Professor of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
- ICDS Associate
Department: Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering
Office: 222 Leonard Building, University Park
Email: skumara@psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-2359
Research Focuses: Intelligent systems, sensor data representation and fusion, process data monitoring and diagnostics; smart manufacturing; graph analytics; big data analytics
John Liechty
- Professor of Marketing
- Professor of Statistics
- ICDS Associate
Department: Statistics, Marketing
Office: 409 Business Building
Email: jcl12@psu.edu
Phone: 814-865-0621
Research Focuses: Large scale Bayesian computation with application in marketing and finance
Xiao Liu
- Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering
- ICDS Co-hire
Department: Biomedical Engineering
Office: 315 Hallowell Building, University Park
Email: xxl213@engr.psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-4419
Research Focuses: Multi-modal neuroimaging techniques, computational neuroscience, brain activity and consciousness, network dynamics of the brain, neural basis of resting-state fMRI connectivity
Greg Madden
- Senior Advisor for Research Computing and Cyberinfrastructure
- ICDS Associate
Department: Office of the Vice President for Research
Office: N311B Millennium Science Complex
Email: gem19@psu.edu
Phone: 814-865-2536
Patrick McDaniel
- William L. Weiss Professor of Information and Communications Technology
- Director, Institute for Network and Security Research
- ICDS Associate
Department: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Office: W329 Westgate Building, University Park
Email: pdm12@psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-3599
Research Focuses: Systems and network security; security policy; networking; distributed systems; public policy; telecommunications security; network management; applied cryptography; privacy
Edward O’Brien
- Associate Professor of Chemistry
- ICDS Co-hire
Department: Chemistry
Office: 402 Chemistry Building, University Park
Email: epo2@psu.edu
Phone: 814-867-5100
Research Focuses: Ribosome-associated protein folding, macromolecular self-assembly and chaperone interactions in living cells
Zita Oravecz
- Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Studies
- ICDS Co-hire
Department: Human Development and Family Studies
Office: 216 Health and Human Development Building, University Park
Email: zita@psu.edu
Phone: 814-865-1546
Research Focuses: Individual differences, process modeling, state-of-the-art statistical approaches, emotion, cognition, Bayesian statistics
Susan Sinnott
- Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
- ICDS Associate
Department: Materials Science and Engineering
Office: 221A Steidle Building, University Park
Email: sinnott@matse.psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-3117
Research Focuses: Computational materials design; chemical modification of polymer and composite surfaces; the influence of grain boundaries, point defects, and heterogeneous interfaces on materials properties
Hal Smith
- Associate Professor of Information Sciences and Technology
- Assistant Director of Academic Affairs
- ICDS Associate
Department: Information Sciences and Technology
Office: 103A Administration Building, Penn State New Kensington
Email: hal.smith@psu.edu
Phone: 724-334-6036
Research Focuses: Component software architectures in the real-time systems domain, data mining, data quality, network science and peer assessment and team-based learning
Jen Stedelin
- Senior Director, Strategic Operations
Department: Office for the Vice President of Information Technology
Email: jms1479@psu.edu
Phone: 814-865-8209
Adri van Duin
- Professor of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering
- ICDS Associate
Department: Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering
Office: 240 Research East Building, University Park
Email: acv13@psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-6277
Research Focuses: Reactive force fields; computational methods in materials; hydrocarbons; all-carbon materials; nitramines; proteins; semiconductors; transition metals
Don Welch
- Chief Information Security Officer at Penn State
- Affiliate Faculty of Information Sciences and Technology
- ICDS Associate
Department: Office of Information Security
Office: 0029 Technology Support Building, University Park
Email: djw66@psu.edu
Phone: 814-865-3684
Research Focuses: Information security; cybersecurity
Lingzhou Xue
- Associate Professor of Statistics
- ICDS Associate
Department: Statistics
Office: 318 Thomas Building, University Park
Email: lxx6@psu.edu
Phone: 814-865-1290
Research Focuses: Statistical learning and data mining; high dimensional statistical inference; large scale convex/nonconvex optimization algorithms; statistical analysis of big data, high dimensional data and large scale networks; statistical modeling in health science, information engineering, business analytics and finance
Qing Yang
- Professor of Radiology, Bioengineering, Engineering Sciences and Neurosurgery
- ICDS Associate
Department: Radiology
Office: 500 University Drive, H066, Penn State Hershey
Email: qxy1@psu.edu
Phone: 717-531-5856
Research Focuses: High-field MRI; magnetic susceptibility effects on the static magnetic field; dielectric effects on the radio-frequency field; T2* contrast imaging
Katherine Zipp
- Associate Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics
- ICDS Associate
Department: Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education
Office: 112-F Armsby
Email: kyz1@psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-8247
Research Focuses: Environmental and resource economics; land economics; spatial modeling; non-market valuation