The UCF College of Engineering and Computer Science welcomed four new faculty members for the spring 2026 semester. These four join the previous 39 faculty members who joined the college in August 2025.
The new faculty bring a wide range of expertise that ranges from energy system optimization and supply chain management to digital twins and data science. Learn more about them below.
Pouria Ahmadi
Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Ahmadi is an expert in the areas of energy system optimization, hydrogen and fuel cell technology, and advanced power plants. He joins UCF from The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he studies the decarbonization of transportation in the U.S. through alternative fuels. He serves as an editor of several industry journals and has written more than 120 journal articles.
Xinyu Chen
Assistant Professor
Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering
Xinyu Chen joins UCF as a member of the newly launched Institute of Artificial Intelligence (IAI). He earned his doctoral degree from the University of Montreal in Canada. Prior to joining UCF, he was a postdoctoral associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His research interests include machine learning, optimization, data science, time series analysis, transportation, urban studies and dynamical systems.
Alessandro Fascetti
Associate Professor
Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering
Fascetti is the director of the Digital Twin Infrastructure Science for Operations and Visualization in Engineering Resilience (DISCOVER) Lab and conducts research in the areas of digital twin modeling and computational simulation of civil engineering materials and structures. He received his doctoral, master’s and bachelor’s degrees from the Sapienza University of Rome. Fascetti has received nearly $5 million in research funding to date and has been sponsored by organizations such as the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and NVIDIA. He has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles in international journals, conference proceedings and technical reports.
Ying Xie
Professor
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
With a background in engineering and science, Xie successfully applies the scientific tools to resolve business and industrial engineering problems in multiple disciplines, including logistics, supply chain management, finance, healthcare, disaster management, sustainability and more. She specializes in maritime transport, clean energy supply chains, sustainable aviation supply chains and healthcare supply chains. Xie also sits on the strategy advisory board for Digital Supply Chain Innovation Hub for Digital Catapult.
- Written by Marisa Ramiccio '11