February 12, 2021 Engineering faculty named Vilas Associates Written By: Jason Daley Departments: Chemical & Biological Engineering|Electrical & Computer Engineering|Materials Science & Engineering Categories: Awards Three College of Engineering faculty have earned research support through the 2021-22 Vilas Associates Competition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The awards recognize new and ongoing research of high quality and significance across the university and include research salary support as well a flexible research funding. This year’s engineering awardees include Jiamian Hu, assistant professor of materials science and engineering and Grainger Institute for Engineering Fellow, Dimitris Papailiopoulos, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and Grainger Institute for Engineering Fellow, and Reid Van Lehn, Conway Assistant Professor of chemical and biological engineering. Hu and his group computationally model the evolution and properties of material microstructure. Papailiopoulos focuses on the intersection of machine learning, coding theory and distributed and parallel systems. Van Lehn applies molecular simulation techniques to characterize, predict, and engineer the properties of synthetic and biological soft materials.