Lighthouse Beacon Foundation (LBF) Endowment

Established in 2024, the Lighthouse Beacon Foundation Endowment provides opportunities to support professorships, research scholars, post-doctoral and graduate fellowships, research infrastructure, and mission-support activities.  The endowment derives from a generous gift from Stanley and Karen Pigman and Kentucky’s Research Challenge Trust Fund. 

Advance research growth in the college through three strategic priorities: 

1. Encourage researchers to collaborate within and beyond the college.
2. Increase competitiveness towards attracting new research investments.
3. Strengthen mutual impact of both the researcher and the college.

Endowment requests are solicited annually by the college. Awards are made by dean following input from the college executive committee and a rigorous review process conducted by the Lighthouse Beacon Foundation Advisory Committee. The advisory committee is appointed by the dean and includes research-active faculty from departments across the college. 

The Lighthouse Beacon Foundation Endowment will grow in the coming years to over $550,000 per year. 

Jeffrey Todd Hastings, associate dean for research and graduate studies and professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project Title:  Expanding the Pigman College of Engineering’s Research in Quantum Sensing
Award Period: July 2025 - June 2027

Dan Fries, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Project Title: Plasma Treatment of Biological Interfaces
Award Period: July 2025 - June 2027

Martha Grady, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Project Title: Building Tougher Additively Manufactured Metals with Laser Shock Peening
Award Period: July 2024 - June 2027

Michael Quinlan Hovish, assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering
Project Title:  Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Processing of Natural and Polymeric Materials
Award Period: July 2025 - June 2027

Hyun-Tae Hwang, associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering (Paducah campus)
Project Titled: Fabrication of a Hydrogen Generator Prototype Using New Approach
Award Period: July 2024 - June 2025 and July 2026 - July 2027

Abdullah-Al-Zubaer Imran, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science
Project Title:  ConduitGen: Physics-guided Generative AI for Geologically Realistic Cave Conduit Generation
Award Period: July 2025 - June 2027

Thomas Tie Luo, associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project Title:  Explainable Self-Supervised AI for Low-Label Scientific Domains
Award Period: July 2026 - June 2027

Ali Moradi, assistant professor in the Department of Mining Engineering
Project Title: Intelligent Surface Mining - Integration of Cyber-Physical System and Metaverse
Award Period: July 2024 - June 2027

Alexandra Paterson, assistant professor with a joint appointment in the Departments of Chemical and Materials Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project Title: Stable Plastic Mixed-Conductor Electronics
Award Period: July 2024 - June 2027

Christine Trinkle, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Project Titled: Advanced Artificial Lung Research
Award Period: July 2024 - June 2027

Stephen Ware, associate professor in the Department of Computer Science
Project Titled: Large-Scale Evaluation of AI Collaborative Storytelling via the First Interactive Narrative Challenge (INCH)
Award Period: July 2026 - June 2027

Samantha Zambuto, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Project Titled: Reproductive Tissue Engineering
Award Period: July 2024 - June 2027

Jonathan Zuidema, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Project Titled: Biomaterials for Nervous System Repair
Award Period: July 2024 - June 2027

Savio Poovathingal, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Project Title: Predicting Uncontrolled Heating of Electric Batteries
Award Period: July 2024 - June 2026

Paula Alarcon-Espejo, postdoctoral researcher in the Departments of Chemical and Materials Engineering
Project Titled: Translating Science to Technology: Fully 3D-Printed Organic Microelectrode Arrays for Neural Recording
Award Period: July 2026 - June 2027

Peiwen Zhang, postdoctoral researcher in the F. Joseph Halcomb III, M.D. Department of Biomedical Engineering
Project Titled: Portable Time-Resolved Laser Speckle Contrast Imaging (TR-LSCI) for Blood Flow Mapping in Reconstructive Skin Flaps
Award Period: July 2026 - June 2027

Mubashir Hussain, postdoctoral researcher in the F. Joseph Halcomb III, M.D. Department of Biomedical Engineering
Project Titled: Noninvasive Optical Monitoring of Cerebral Blood Flow and Intracranial Pressure in Preterm Infants
Award Period: July 2025 - June 2026

Rajashekara Sarvesha, postdoctoral researcher in the Institute for Sustainable Manufacturing
Project Titled: Advanced Cold Spray Coatings for Enhanced Durability of Cutting Tools
Award Period: July 2025 - June 2026

Xiaoyue Yang, postdoctoral researcher in the F. Joseph Halcomb III, M.D. Department of Biomedical Engineering
Project Titled: Advancing post-doctoral research in Nanomedicine & Immunoengineering
Award Period: July 2025 - June 2026

Nishat Nayla, doctoral student in the Department of Computer Science
AI-Driven Multimodal Platform for Longitudinal Breast Cancer Risk Prediction
Award Period: July 2026 - June 2027

Amir Sakhaei, doctoral student in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
AI-Enabled Portable Diagnostics for Decentralized Environmental Pathogen Surveillance
Award Period: July 2026 - June 2027

Md Zahid Hasan, Ph.D. student in the F. Joseph Halcomb III, M.D. Department of Biomedical Engineering
Project Title: Portable Optical Spectroscopy and Novel Algorithms to Investigate Metabolic and Vascular Changes in Small Animals In Vivo
Award Period: July 2025 - June 2026

Afsaneh Mahanipour, Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science
Project Title: Optimizing Cyber-Physical Systems with a Novel Automated Data Processing Pipeline
Award Period: July 2025 - June 2026

Sarah Garcia Pava, Ph.D. student in the F. Joseph Halcomb III, M.D. Department of Biomedical Engineering
Project Title: Advancing Brain-Computer Interface Research for Rehabilitation
Award Period: July 2025 - June 2026

Bhoj Raj Thapa, Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project Title: Advance Assistive Technologies in Brain Machine Interfaces by Using Neural Signal Processing and Machine Learning
Award Period: July 2025 - June 2026

Jing Yan, Ph.D. student in the F. Joseph Halcomb III, M.D. Department of Biomedical Engineering
Project Title: Development of a Portable Optical Assay for Metabolic Profiling and Personalized Radiation Therapy Response Prediction in Breast Cancer
Award Period: July 2025 - June 2026

Rosemary E. Alden, Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project Titled: Advanced Computational and Experimental Methods based on HIL
Award Period: July 2024 - June 2026

Ifteher Alom, Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science
Project Titled: Fighting Robotext Scams with Privacy-Preserving Short Message Authentication in Mobile Networks
Award Period: July 2024 - June 2026

Steven Poore, Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project Title: Advances in Electric Grid Reliability Research
Award Period: July 2024 - June 2026

Mohammad Dehghan Banadaki, Ph.D. student in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Project Topic: Environmental Surveillance of pathogens in water and wastewater
Award Period: July 2024 – June 2025

Chowdhury Azimul Haque, Ph.D. student in the F. Joseph Halcomb III, M.D. Department of Biomedical Engineering
Project Title: Wireless, wearable optical devices for real-time imaging of cerebral hemodynamics and brain tumors
Award Period: July 2024 - June 2025

Donovin D. Lewis, Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project Topic: Wireless charging technologies for the future generation of electric vehicles
Award Period: July 2024 - June 2025

Ariel Robinson, Ph.D. student in the Department of Civil Engineering
Project Title: Developing and refining screening methods to prioritize geographic locations with environmental contamination.
Award Period: July 2024 - June 2025

Pegah Safavi, Ph.D. student in the F. Joseph Halcomb III, M.D. Department of Biomedical Engineering
Project Title: Wearable Optical Sensor for Tracking Cerebral Blood Flow Changes in Alzheimer's Disease
Award Period: July 2024 - June 2025