New Faculty - September 2021

Dr. Lorne Arnold received his Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering with a focus on geotechnical engineering from the University of Washington Seattle in 2016. Most recently an associate geotechnical engineer at Hart Crowser in Seattle, his research focuses on slope stability and resiliency. As a long-time Tacoma resident, Dr. Arnold is committed to outreach to the local community, emphasizing supporting local students to pursue STEM degrees. He has earned praise for the innovative nature of his research accomplishments and his commitment to living in and serving the Tacoma community.

Dr. Matthew Ford comes to SET from the Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering department at Cornell University where he was a postdoctoral associate. He completed his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Northwestern University on mechanics of structures in 2018, with a strong focus on teaching practice as a teaching assistant and instructor. With the Cornell Active Learning Initiative, Dr. Ford worked to transform the core ME curriculum for remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. He is passionate about student-centered education and evidence-based teaching practice and has worked enthusiastically to support underrepresented students inside and outside the classroom.

Dr. Emese Hadnagy comes to SET from the University of New Haven in Connecticut where she was a tenured associate professor in civil engineering. The director of the master's program in environmental engineering, she has extensive experience in curriculum development at the program and university levels and 15 years of experience in teaching engineering. Dr. Hadnagy's research is focused on water systems and has led to more than $750K in funded grants and plans to collaborate with the Center for Urban Waters to focus on stormwater pollution and contaminant mobility in coastal communities. Known for her strong collaboration skills and research excellence, she has also researched innovation in engineering education and pedagogical studies while supporting and mentoring underrepresented students in K-12 STEM outreach programs.

Dr. Ling-Hong Hung's work focuses on fast cloud-based analysis of big biomedical data accessible to scientists and clinicians. He earned his doctorate in Biochemistry from the University of Western Ontario and has been writing software for more than 20 years. He has taught courses in both biochemistry and software engineering. Current projects include using serverless cloud instances for supercomputing, real-time DNA sequence analysis  using hand-held devices, and combining genomics with bio-imaging data. Dr. Hung is funded through grants and contracts from the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute and am co-founder and CTO of Biodepot LLC.

Dr. Angela Kitali was most recently a postdoctoral scholar at Florida International University, where she obtained her Ph.D. in 2020. Her research focuses on using machine learning to improve federal highway safety. Her research has resulted in over 20 peer-reviewed journal papers. Dr. Kitali has a strong record of mentoring undergraduate and graduate students from diverse backgrounds, and her teaching experience aligns with best practices for active learning. She has been praised for her exceptionally high scholarly productivity, collaborative work style, and outreach work with K-12 students and as a rising star in the field of transportation civil engineering.

Dr. Jeffrey Walters received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2015 and comes to SET from George Fox University in Newberg, OR. His research has focused on developing systems thinking and modeling techniques for sustainable agricultural food production, rural water and sanitation services, household solar PV technology, and systems thinking in engineering pedagogy. He has taught mechanics of materials, structural analysis and design, geotechnical engineering, and transportation engineering, impressing his peers by maintaining an extensive research program with undergraduate researchers, despite a heavy teaching load.