New engineering faculty bring global expertise in AI, materials and biomedical

The Boise State College of Engineering welcomes five new faculty members across three academic departments.

"Our college's newest faculty members bring a diverse range of expertise that will strengthen both our research capacity and the education experiences of our students," College of Engineering Dean Amy Fleischer said. "We are excited to welcome them to our community and for the impact they'll have on our students and on Idaho's growing engineering and technology sectors."

The five new faculty hold appointments in the Department of Civil Engineering, Department of Computer Science, and Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, bringing expertise spanning AI-driven infrastructure resilience, advanced materials science, automated reason and cancer biomechanics.

Meet the faculty

Hongrak Pak, Civil Engineering

Hongrak Pak joins the Department of Civil Engineering at Boise State University as an assistant professor. He earned his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Texas A&M University and his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Hongik University in Seoul, South Korea. In his doctoral research, he applied transfer learning to predict structural response under extreme hazard loading. This work addresses the persistent challenge of limited, costly experimental data in structural and natural hazards engineering.

Before joining Boise State, Pak was a postdoctoral researcher jointly affiliated with the UrbanResilience.AI Lab, Resilitix Intelligence, and the Institute for a Disaster Resilient Texas. He developed AI-driven analytics tools to support emergency managers before, during, and after disasters. He also applied large language models to analyze hazard mitigation plans from multiple states.

At Boise State, Pak leads the Disaster-Resilient Infrastructure Systems (DRIS) Lab, where his research spans AI-driven infrastructure analytics, structural performance assessment and disaster resilience. The lab's goal is to make civil infrastructure resilient: to keep it functioning when disaster strikes and to keep communities that depend on it safe.

Zach Hansen, Computer Science

Zach Hansen joins the Department of Computer Science as an assistant professor. A Bozeman, Montana native, he earned his B.S. in Computer Science from Texas Tech University and his Ph.D. in Computing and Information Science from the University of Nebraska Omaha.

Hansen's interest in Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, a branch of symbolic AI focusing on building transparent and reliable AI systems, took root during his undergraduate years at Texas Tech. As a firm advocate for trustworthy AI, his graduate work centered on formally verifying the correctness of logic programs using automated theorem provers.

At Boise State, he leads the Knowledge Representation and Automated Reasoning (KRAR) Lab, focusing on answer set and logic programming, mathematical logic, software verification, automated reasoning, and neurosymbolic AI. An avid hiker, climber, and skier, Hansen says the combination of Boise State's strong AI emphasis and the nearby mountains makes the move feel like a homecoming.

Johane Bracamonte, Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering

Johane Bracamonte joins the Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering as an assistant professor, bringing more than 20 years of professional and academic experience in computational modeling and simulation engineering. He earned his B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Central University of Venezuela and his Ph.D. in Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Bracamonte's early research focused on optimizing solar thermal technologies for subtropical climates using computational thermodynamics. His subsequent training and work led him to pioneer the use of physics-informed machine learning models for personalized healthcare and the development of biomedical technologies.

At Boise State, he leads the Translational Research and Multiscale Modeling Laboratory (TRAM2), focusing on developing computational tools to improve understanding of cardiovascular disease and support clinical management through multiscale models of molecular and organ physiology enhanced with machine learning. Bracamonte is the recipient of two American Heart Association fellowships, the Jame Truchard Scholarship from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and Young Investigator Venezuelan Awards for Science, Technology, and Innovation.

Joshua Francois, Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering

Joshua Francois joins the Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering as an assistant professor. He earned his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, before completing his Ph.D. in Bioengineering at the University of California, San Diego, and a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School.

As a doctoral student, Francois used statistical analysis and 3D image processing to study how the density of three-dimensional environments affects white blood cell migration. At Harvard, his postdoctoral research focused on developing novel 3D assays, 3D image analysis techniques, and next-generation sequencing approaches to understand how DNA damage and 3D cell microenvironments affect cell signaling.

The Francois Lab combines principles from classical mechanics with multi-omics and 3D image analysis to explore how cancer cell microenvironments influence the effectiveness of DNA-damaging therapies in slowing cancer progression and enhancing tumor clearance. François has received numerous honors, including Harvard Medical School's Dean's Postdoctoral Fellowship and the Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship. As the child of Haitian immigrants who grew up with few underrepresented scientists as role models, he is committed to building inclusive research and classroom environments where students from all backgrounds can thrive.

Jannatun Nawer, Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering

Jannatun Nawer joined Boise State this summer as an assistant professor of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering. She earned her Ph.D. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University and a B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering from the Military Institute of Science and Technology in Bangladesh.

Before coming to Boise State, Nawer worked as a Technical Program Manager at Solvus Global LLC in Massachusetts, focusing on friction stir and cold spray additive manufacturing. She has led three space-flight experiments with NASA, in collaboration with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency in 2022 and the European Space Agency in 2023 and 2026.

At Boise State, she leads the High-Temperature Materials Lab (HTM), with research spanning high-temperature material processing, alloy design, and material characterization. Drawing on a background that bridges microgravity and terrestrial studies, Nawer tackles fundamental challenges in materials science for in-space manufacturing and industrial additive manufacturing.

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