Welcoming new faculty to the School of STEM 2026
2026-2027 ACADEMIC YEAR
The University of Washington Bothell School of STEM is excited to welcome seven new faculty members across three of our departments!
They join five other new faculty members at UW Bothell in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences and thr School of Nursing & Health Studies. A warn welcome to all faculty!
Morteza Chini
Assistant Teaching Professor
Department of Computing & Software Systems
Morteza Chini has taught a broad range of courses as a lecturer in the Department of Computing & Software Systems at UW Bothell since 2016. He received his Master of Science in IT & Cybersecurity Management from Central Washington University. His teaching style emphasizes building professional relationships with learners, fostering a collaborative and supportive environment grounded in cooperation, mentorship and active learning. He connects foundational computing concepts with practical, real-world applications, helping students develop technical confidence and problem-solving skills.
Research focus: computer science education, cybersecurity, software engineering
Courses:
- CSS 497 Capstone Project
- CSS 370 Software Analysis & Design
- CSS 360 Software Engineering
- CSS 350 Management for Computing Professionals
- CSS 332 Issues with OOP (C++)
- CSS 310 Information Assurance & Cybersecurity
- CSS 301 Technical writing for computing professionals
- CSS 295 K-12 Computer education
- CSSSKL 142 & 143 Java labs
- CSS 142 Programing with Java
- CSS 143 Programing with Java II
- CIS 102 MS. Database
- CIS 253 Cloud computing applications
- CIS 233 System analysis & design I
- CIS 234 Design & development II
- CSSSKL 509 Master’s Technical Writing Skills
- CSSSKL 510 Master’s Scientific Writing
Vishesh Khemani
Assistant Teaching Professor
Department of Computing & Software Systems
Dr. Vishesh Khemani received his bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and his Ph.D. from MIT. As a student and postdoc, he researched topics in computational physics, quantum field theory, and particle physics. He transitioned into software engineering and worked on the frontiers of large-scale distributed systems at Amazon and Google for nearly two decades. His portfolio includes AWS S3 (at the dawn of cloud computing) and Google Maps, Cloud Storage, and Caching. He has now found his calling in teaching computer science, drawing on his industry experience to connect theory to practice. He blogs at medium.com on topics that pique his interest.
Research focus: education tools, software engineering tools and practices, reliable large-scale multi-tenant services, distributed systems
Courses:
- CSS 132 Computer Programming for Engineers I
- CSS 133 Computer Programming for Engineers II
- CSS 142 Computer Programming I
- CSS 143 Computer Programming II
- CSS 422 Hardware and Computer Organization
Anita Li
Assistant Professor
Department of Engineering & Mathematics
Dr. Anita Li graduated with a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. Afterwards, she joined General Motors as a materials engineer, working on electric vehicle technologies. While at GM, she earned her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan, conducting her dissertation research on silicon anode electrode manufacturing and design for lithium-ion batteries. Afterwards, she developed new biomimetic materials for osteoarthritis treatment as a post-doctoral researcher at Villanova University. In her current research, she seeks ways to leverage ionic interactions within biological systems in the design and development of advanced biomedical implants and therapeutics, with an eye towards addressing unmet clinical needs and improving human health.
Research focus: materials engineering and characterization, biomedical engineering & robotics
Courses:
- B ME 222 Mechanics of Materials
- B ME 342 Mechanical Systems Design II
Zhengquan Li
Assistant Professor
Department of Computing & Software Systems
Dr. Zhengquan Li received his Ph.D. in Computer and Information Science from the University of Michigan-Dearborn and collaborated with Cisco Research during his doctoral studies. His research broadly focuses on computer systems and networking, with an emphasis on designing efficient, adaptive and reliable systems for modern computing environments. He investigates how computation, storage and communication resources can be coordinated across end devices, edge platforms and distributed infrastructures to support heterogeneous, resource-constrained environments. His work has resulted in 15 peer-reviewed publications, including premier venues such as IEEE ICDCS (Distinguished Paper Award), IEEE PerCom, ACM/IFIP Middleware, and IEEE Transactions on Services Computing.
Research focus: parallel, distributed, cloud, and edge computing
Courses:
- CSS 301 Technical Writing
- CSS 533 Distributed Computing
- CSS 545 Mobile Computing
Yangqing Liu
Assistant Teaching Professor
Department of Engineering & Mathematics
Dr. Yangqing Liu received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Chicago. Before joining the University of Washington Bothell, she was an electromagnetic compatibility engineer at Apple. Her research focuses on inverse electromagnetic scattering problems, which arise in engineering applications such as radar, nondestructive testing and medical imaging. Her interests include numerical methods and optimization algorithms, and their applications to solve electric field integral equations.
Research focus: electromagnetics
Rick McLaughlin
Assistant Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Dr. Rick McLaughlin is a molecular biology, genomics, and immunology researcher and educator who studies how innate immune systems recognize and suppress transposable elements (“jumping DNA” sequences that can copy and insert themselves in our genomes) and how failures of this control can affect genome stability and disease. He previously led a research group at the Pacific Northwest Research Institute, trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and received his doctorate from UT Southwestern Medical Center. He has taught and guest lectured in courses including Comparative Immunology at the University of Washington and Biotechnology at Seattle University, and he co-developed a course-based undergraduate research experience with Edmonds College.
Research focus: Ecology, evolution and behavior; genomic and bioinformatics; microbiology, molecular and cellular biology
Courses:
- BST 301 Scientific Writing
- BIO 495 Investigative Biology
Joanna Wang
Assistant Teaching Professor
Department of Computing & Software Systems
Dr. Zhao (Joanna) Wang holds a Ph.D. in Marine Science from Duke University and an M.S. in Computer Science from Rice University, where she specialized in machine learning and engineering leadership. Her teaching focuses on programming, data structures and algorithms and software engineering, with an emphasis on conceptual understanding, hands-on learning and real-world applications. Her interdisciplinary background bridges data-intensive scientific research and computer science education and her teaching emphasizes not only how theories work, but why they work and how they apply beyond the classroom.
Research focus: artificial intelligence/machine learning, computational biology and health care computing, computer science education, data computing/data science/scientific computing
Courses:
- CSS 142 Computer Programming I
- CSS 143 Computer Programming II
- CSS 342 Data Structures, Algorithms, and Discrete Mathematics I
- CSS 343 Data Structures, Algorithms, and Discrete Mathematics II
- CSS 350 Management Principles for Computing Professionals
- CSS 360 Software engineering