University of Alabama – Birmingham (UAB)
UAB is a public research university with a strong focus on outreach. Engineering faculty in particular have
a solid track record of pursuing cross-disciplinary programs of research, education, technology-transfer,
and outreach in high fidelity computational field simulations and associated enabling technologies. In the
course of the past two decades, 3D modeling and simulation, virtual reality, and visualization have
become powerful media for presentation, instruction, analysis, research, and design (Soni and Singh,
2009; Soni, 2010). UAB has established the Computational Simulation (CSLab) and the Enabling
Technology (ETLab) laboratories and associated expertise in application-oriented research and software
development. The CSLab and ETLab have been very active in outreach and collaboration with regional
K-12 schools as well as community colleges. They also host an annual Summer Institute in
Computational Simulations and Visualization that attracts high school students, parents, teachers, and
administrators from across the state. UAB’s expertise in 3D modeling and simulation will play an
important role in the teacher training component of this project.
STEM Faculty and Staff
Dr. Jong- Eun Kim
Research Assoc. Professsor
Mechanicl Engineering
Dr. Alan Shih
Research Professor
Dr. Roy Koomullil
Assoc. Professor of
Mechanical Engineering
Dr. Bharat Soni
Chairman and Professor of
Mechanical Engineering
Mrs. Kimberly Hazelwood
Program Director, Dept.
of Mechanical Engineering
Mr. Peter Newman
Grants and Contracts Officer