Dr. Heping Chen – Project Director (PD)
Email contact: heping.chen@txstate.edu
Dr. Heping Chen is an Associate Professor at the Ingram School of Engineering. He has developed several new courses and teaching laboratories at TXST. He worked in the industry for 12 years and has extensive experience in robotic applications and machine learning. He has been PD and Co-PD for more than 15 funded projects from industry and other agencies. Dr. Chen was a faculty mentor of the Houston-Louis Stokes STEM Pathways and Research Alliance (H-LSAMP) program, an NSF-funded REU program. Six Hispanic undergraduate students named him Alpha Chi Favorite Professor and a person at TXST who contributed to their academic career. He has also supervised ~10 ethnic minority students in his research laboratory.
Dr. Bahram Asiabanpour – Co-PD
Email Contact: ba13@txstate.edu
Dr. Bahram Asiabanpour is a professor and manufacturing engineering program coordinator at the Ingram School of Engineering, Texas State University. He is a Certified Manufacturing Engineer (CMfgE). He has been PI or CoPI of over 50 external and internal grants. Dr. Asiabanpour is the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Rapid Manufacturing (IJRapidM).
Dr. Merritt L. Drewery – Co-PD
Email Contact: m_d553@txstate.edu
Dr. Merritt Drewery is an Assistant Professor of Animal Science in the Department of Agricultural Sciences. Her research broadly encompasses two themes – enhancing the sustainability of beef cattle production and evaluating the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) in life sciences. She has been PI or CoPI of federal grants exceeding $23M.
Dr. Damian Valles – Co-PD
Email Contact: dvalles@txstate.edu
Dr. Damian Valles is an Associate Professor at the Ingram School of Engineering. He’s worked on HPC research since 2005, embedded research projects since 2012, and machine learning research since 2014, and he is a triple graduate from the Electrical & Computer Department at UTEP. Currently holding a Faculty Fellow position in the Translational Health Research Center (THRC) at Texas State University and director of the High-Performance Engineering (HiPE) research group.
Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture 2023-2027