National Academy of Inventors inducts six Texas State University faculty as senior members

Bahram Asiabanpour, Ph.D., professor in the Ingram School of Engineering, is recognized for his work as the coordinator for both the Manufacturing Engineering Program and the Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Ph.D. program, where he has strengthened multidisciplinary collaboration, modernized curricula, expanded additive manufacturing, precision agriculture, sustainability and disruptive manufacturing research, and cultivated pathways from invention to commercialization. Collectively, his leadership, funded initiatives, patent creation and academic development efforts have positioned TXST as an emerging hub for manufacturing-driven invention, talent development and technology translation.

Martin Burtscher, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Computer Science, is recognized for his research that has advanced the state of the art in computer architecture, data compression and graph analytics. He has developed “future execution,” an architectural enhancement to make processors run faster. He has created several leading lossless and lossy data compression algorithms that are much faster than other compressors at the same compression ratios, and invented several new algorithms to speed up and improve big-data analysis, in particular graph analytics. Similarly, his Fringe-SGC algorithm for counting subgraphs is exponentially faster than the fastest prior approaches on many subgraphs.

Nihal Dharmasiri, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Biology, is recognized for groundbreaking and widely influential scholarship in biology focused on the identification and investigation of the auxin receptor in plants. This discovery was a major milestone in plant sciences as a new molecular mechanism was identified for hormone receptors. This finding had an impact not only on plant sciences, but also on medical sciences. He has built on this work with a focus on developing plants resistant to the commonly used herbicide, picloram, leading to a patent for seeds that are herbicide resistant.

Alexander Kornienko, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, is recognized for pioneering work on natural product-based cancer and antibiotic discoveries. This research offers the potential to revitalize ineffective antibiotic and cancer therapies through innovative approaches, potentially saving countless lives. His prolific research and six patents demonstrate a profound advancement in science and engineering that fosters innovation and holds substantial economic promise through new therapeutic development.

Ted Lehr, Ph.D., associate professor of practice in the Department of Computer Science, is recognized for infusing an entrepreneurial viewpoint into his computer science students. He successfully changed the curriculum for object oriented programming and software engineering to develop skills and problem-solving approaches that would be enthusiastically embraced by senior software engineers and their managers in industries like Meta, Apple, IBM, H-E-B and USAA. Students approach his software engineering course as if they are working on a startup that is going public with product launches at the end of the semester. The “products” are the team projects of the students in the class.

Christopher Rhodes, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, is recognized for contribution to the research, development and commercialization of advanced materials for batteries and electrosynthesis of hydrogen peroxide that provide both welfare and economic development benefits. This included a patent for the electrosynthesis of hydrogen peroxide that provides on-site, on-demand generation of H2O2 from water and electricity; a submitted patent for an improved electrode for low-cost, safe Ni-Zn batteries; and a submitted patent for non-flammable electrolytes for Li-ion batteries that increases safety from battery fires and explosions.