'welcome aboard'
A wave of new faculty will strengthen key areas of CWRU and the Case School of Engineering
Ana Hernandez Reynoso represents the vanguard of a university-wide effort to grow the faculty ranks.
Ana Hernandez Reynoso was drawn to Cleveland from Dallas, Texas, by Case’s leadership in neural engineering. That, and its reputation for collaboration and discovery.
Her first few months on Case Quad convinced her she made the right choice.
“Everybody’s been friendly,” said Hernandez Reynoso, a new assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. “People have been reaching out to explore new projects and collaborations.” She’s eager to dive into her area of expertise – using electrical stimulation to restore function for people who have been affected by stroke or spinal cord injuries. But first, there are students to inspire. This spring, Hernandez Reynoso is teaching Physiology & Biophysics II, one of the foundational courses in biomedical engineering.
She’s both excited and a little nervous about sharing her passion for the field.
“I love teaching. I like to think I’m good at it,” she said. “I like being able to explain difficult concepts and hopefully inspire some of them to become researchers.”
Hernandez Reynoso represents the vanguard of a larger wave, one bringing new energy and targeted expertise to campus. The university has embarked upon a hiring initiative that will add 100 net new faculty positions over the next four years, a 15 percent boost in the faculty ranks, bringing the total to nearly 800 tenured and tenure-track faculty.
Faculty 100, as it’s being called, aims to bolster the university in key growth areas, including engineering and the sciences, while enriching the research enterprise overall.
Alumni have a role to play. University President Eric W. Kaler hopes to endow 50 new professorships through philanthropy, which will add resources and prestige to the positions. It’s an ambitious goal, as such endowments require a $2 million commitment or more. But Provost Joy K. Ward, the university’s chief academic officer, thinks the goal is both realistic and necessary.
Case Western Reserve needs more faculty to serve a student body that has grown by about 15 percent since Kaler’s inauguration in 2021, and now numbers more than 12,000 students split between undergraduate and graduate programs.
New faculty will also allow the university to take greater advantage of research momentum and the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Building, a $300 million research flagship rising on Case quad.
“It is key at this point in our history to add more faculty,” she said. “And we wanted to be bold about that. Not just to add a few — that would not meet our targets — but to really grow and make a true difference in solving some of society’s largest challenges.”
Early reviews from donors are positive, she added. Since Faculty 100 began in the Fall of 2023, 47 people have been hired, and the university has raised enough funding to cover 14 new professorships.
“We’re well on our way,” Ward said.
Engineering adds muscle
The Case School of Engineering is seeing some of the early fruits of the hiring initiative. The school added 13 new faculty members last year and will bring aboard five more this year. Venkataramanan “Ragu” Balakrishan, the Charles H. Phipps Dean of the Case School of Engineering, said the new hires strengthen key programs while enriching research and the student experience.
“We could not be more thrilled to be welcoming a cohort of researchers and educators with expertise in a number of critical areas, he said. “Their work will enhance our student learning experience and inspire new research collaborations that have the potential to make a positive impact on the world.”
It’s an expensive undertaking, as it costs about $1 million to staff and equip a professor’s research lab, he noted. But the investment allows the school to not only bring departments up to full strength but to embrace emerging fields.
Sam Root arrived this winter from Stanford University, where he’s been a postdoctoral scholar specializing in polymers and composites. As an assistant professor in the Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering, he is designing and teaching a new elective, Polymer Composites for Electronics.
Root describes the course as “sort of an introduction to electrical engineering for polymer engineers” and says it is timely. By understanding the electrical properties of polymers, he said, students will be better prepared to help make batteries, robots, and highspeed electronics — and bring critical manufacturing back to America, a movement called onshoring.
“It’s been really exciting to design the class,” he said, noting that Case will be one of the first schools to offer such a course. “There’ a lot of interest in shoring up domestic manufacturing.”
Root arrived in December with his fiancé, an anesthesiologist who has accepted a position with Cleveland Clinic. The Long Island native said he was hoping to join a research university like Case and was drawn to the Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering.
“It’s a unique program. There’s not so many of them,” he said. “I’m just really excited about the opportunity.”
Hernandez Reynoso is also excited about her future at Case. A native of Leon, Mexico, she spent the past several years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Dallas, where she honed her research skills. She and her husband, an engineer for Philips Healthcare, bought a home in Willoughby — so she has already experienced lake-effect snow. But she’s also been building out her lab in Wickendon, hiring research assistants, and getting to know colleagues renowned for their work in neural engineering.
“I could not see a better place to launch my career,” she said.
Joy Ward
Sam Root
Sam Root and his fiance, Dr. Maria Khlebnikova, arrived in December with their dog Sasha.
As it seeks to hire about 100 new faculty members, CWRU faces an even taller challenge: establishing 50 new endowed professorships. These endowed positions are designed to help fund the initiative and magnify its impact.
An endowed professorship is a prestigious award in higher education. It reflects a faculty member’s outstanding accomplishments or future potential, and creates a pool of funds to support their work. As such, it helps to both recruit and retain top faculty, especially in competitive fields.
Vipin Chaudhary, the Kevin Kranzusch Professor and Chair of the Department of Computer and Data Sciences — the fastest growing department in the Case School of Engineering — said endowed positions helped him to recruit his last three faculty members.
“I could not have hired folks in AI, at the quality we have, without the help of those,” he said.
One of the newcomers, Sanmukh Kuppannagari, the James C. Wyant Assistant Professor of Computer Sciences, won the 2024 Gutti Memorial Teaching Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching. The professorships also create a lasting tribute to the donor, who plays a role in planning the position. The university is seeking commitments of at least $2 million to endow professorships. The gift is invested to create a permanent fund that stays with the university. These gifts can also allow the donor to honor others through the naming of the endowed chair.
“That position is going to be filled generation after generation according to the intentions of the donor,” said university Provost Joy K. Ward. “I think it’s one of the highest honors, to invest in that way, because of how much you touch the future.”
For more information on endowed professorships, please contact Stephen Zinram, CEO of the Case Alumni Association, at steve.zinram@casealum.org.
@2020 Case Alumnus Magazine
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