13 faculty chosen for NSF CAREER awards

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Thirteen professors have been recognized by the National Science Foundation for exceptional achievements early in their research careers. Each has received a 2026 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award, the NSF’s most prestigious award in support of early-career faculty who show great promise as future academic role models in research and education.
 
NSF announces CAREER awards throughout the year. Faculty listed below were notified of their awards from December 2025 through July. Receiving recognition and funding are:

Laura Blumenschein 

Laura Blumenschein, assistant professor of mechanical engineering in the College of Engineering, received a $650,000 CAREER award for her project, “Towards a Framework for Emergent Adaptability in Soft Continuum Robots.”  It seeks to advance the fundamental science behind robots designed to work with, rather than against, physical contact. Her research will investigate how passive responses and reactions to touch can be engineered into soft robotic arms, enabling them avoid damage, seek support and automatically grasp target objects.

James Davis

James Davis, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, researches large-scale engineering of computing systems. His project, “PTM-SEER: Software Engineering Foundations for Re-Using Pre-Trained Neural Models,” was awarded $401,546. It focuses on a growing challenge in modern computing: how engineers can safely, effectively and efficiently reuse artificial intelligence models that have already been trained.

Benjamin Delaware

Benjamin Delaware, associate professor of computer science in the College of Science, has received an NSF CAREER award of $391,123 for his project, “Underapproximate Refinement Types for Program Exploration and Understanding.” The project addresses the growing challenge in software development to ensure that code generated by opaque large language models is reliable and secure. To do so, Delaware is developing rigorous techniques for reasoning regarding the behavior of potentially incorrect programs, along with trustworthy tools that help developers better understand such programs.

Michael Eddy

Michael Eddy, associate professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, has been awarded $426,153 toward his work, “Building a Holistic Record of Upper Crustal Pluton Emplacement, Associated Deformation, and Volcanism from a Fossil Magmatic System.” His research will examine the deeply eroded remains of an ancient volcanic system in Washington state where magma pathways are now exposed. The goal is to better understand the processes beneath active volcanoes and the observations used to assess volcanic hazards.

Zahra Ghodsi

Zahra Ghodsi, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, has been granted a CAREER award of $326,628 for her project, “Distributed Large-Scale Machine Learning With Security Guarantees.”  Her work addresses the growing challenge in today’s most powerful machine learning systems that require enormous amounts of data and computing power, limiting their access. She is working to build foundations for machine learning systems that are more open and distributed, while still providing vital security and privacy assurances.

Qi Guo

Qi Guo, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, received a $359,934 CAREER award for his project, “Computational Passive 3D Imaging.” The study investigates a type of 3D imaging that estimates the distance of objects from photographs without emitting light into the environment. Passive 3D imaging has the potential to advance autonomous systems, robotics, scientific imaging and environmental monitoring by relying only on naturally available light, making it energy-efficient, unobtrusive and robust in challenging imaging conditions.

Nusrat Jung

Nusrat Jung, assistant professor of civil and construction engineering, was given $545,869 in CAREER award funding for her project, “Characterizing Chemical Emissions and Multiphase Transformations From Personal Care Product Use in Indoor Environments.” Jung will use mass spectrometry and advanced aerosol instrumentation to generate datasets on chemical behavior across gas and particle phases under realistic conditions. Her work will inform AI-assisted models of chemical movement and ventilation control with implications for reducing pollutants in buildings.

Rajiv Khanna

Rajiv Khanna, assistant professor of computer science, has received a CAREER award of $357,921 for his project, “Algorithmic Advances in Structure-Aware Learning.” His areas of research interest span how learning algorithms>use data, what they retain and how they interact with people. He works to identify the structure underlying machine learning: how it emerges in optimization dynamics, what models remember, which data matter, and how people and AI can learn to work together. 

Haitong Li

Haitong Li, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, was awarded $366,820 for his research project titled, “Efficient and Scalable Neuro-Symbolic Cognitive Computing on Three-Dimensional Integrated Circuits and Systems.” The work aims to develop new computer chips and systems designed to help future AI systems reason, solve complex problems and respond more effectively using less energy. The goal is to make AI systems better at multistep problem-solving in complex, real-world environments.

Ahmed Qureshi

Ahmed Qureshi, assistant professor of computer science, received $440,718 for his project, “Learning for Robot Motion Planning Using Physics Priors.” The research aims to embed physical and mathematical structure directly into machine-learning algorithms, enabling robots to better understand their environments, learn more efficiently, plan motions reliably and adapt to unfamiliar surroundings with less supervision.

Rachel Surowiec

Rachel Surowiec, assistant professor of biomedical engineering in Indianapolis, received a CAREER award of $596,068 for her project, “Quantifying the Mechanical Role of Matrix-Bound Water in Bone Through Multiscale Imaging and Modeling.” Surowiec’s work, aimed at mitigating bone fractures, especially among the elderly, is studying enhanced bone hydration as a novel and promising pathway to reduce bone fragility. This approach seeks to improve the quality of bone tissue by combining expertise in materials engineering, physics, mechanics, biology and biomedical sciences.

Jukka Vayrynen

Jukka Vayrynen, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, has received a CAREER award of $360,000 to support his study, “Topological Quantum Devices as a Window Into Strongly Correlated Matter.” Vayrynen will focus on theoretical work probing how electrons interact in quantum devices built from topological materials, a class of systems with unusual, quantum-governed properties that could one day underpin advanced technologies.

Raymond Yeh

Raymond Yeh, assistant professor of computer science, has receiving a $339,067 CAREER award for his research project, “Data-Centric Capabilities for Vision Models.” Yeh, whose research is at the intersection of machine learning and computer vision, is seeking to develop a new class of data-centric models, where model behavior can be more directly interpreted, attributed and updated through explicit connections to training data. The goal is image generation, understanding and editing that is safe, accountable, interpretable and maintainable.

Click here to read more about the CAREER recipients in the College of Engineering.

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