Mingon Kang is an assistant professor in UNLV's Department of Computer Science. His research interests include machine learning, big data analytics, data science, and bioinformatics.

Specifically, Kang has been focusing on developing novel computational methodologies for integrative, interpretable, and evidential deep learning. His work has explored topics including genomic/multi-omics data analysis, protein sequence analysis, survival analysis, pathological image analysis, and electronic record data analysis.

Kang has published more than 75 research papers in prestigious journals and conferences, including Briefings in Bioinformatics, Bioinformatics, BMC Bioinformatics, Nature Methods, PNAS, and IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. His research has been supported by funding from agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, NASA, Health Resources and Services Administration, and Institute for Information & Communication Technology Promotion. Additionally, he has collaborated with medical research centers such as Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

Aya Shata — an assistant professor in digital media at the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies — brings more than 14 years of strategic communication teaching experience, and serves as the faculty advisor for UNLV's chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA).

Shata is passionate about purpose-driven research that serves communities and pursues social change across a range of critical issues, including sustainable development, climate change, cyberbullying, HIV, women empowerment, and sexual harassment.

Her current research focuses on the ways Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the media landscape, with a particular emphasis on the role and impact of AI in public relations, advertising, and higher education. Shata's overarching goal is to promote a more responsible use of AI, striving to bridge the gap between theory and practice across various industries. 

Her previous research explored attitudinal and behavioral changes brought about by interactive digital media, examining narrative persuasion and the messaging embedded in entertainment education, and investigating the effectiveness of persuasive communication campaigns and media advocacy efforts. During her doctoral studies, she also looked at transmedia narrative to promote sustainable development and identify the narrative persuasion mechanism for transmedia edutainment.

Shata's work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Creative Communication, Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, Games for Health Journal, Journal of African Media Studies, and Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication.

Chad Hensley is the director of UNLV’s radiography program, which is part of the Department of Health Physics and Diagnostic Sciences within the School of Integrated Health Sciences. He joined the program in 2004 and specializes in radiographic anatomy and positioning, patient care, radiologic technology, along with the ethics and law of medical imaging.

Hensley is the co-founder of the Nevada Society of Radiologic Technologists. 

His accolades include Outstanding Educator from the Association of Collegiate Educators in Radiologic Sciences in 2020, Most Effective Radiologic Technologist Educator award by Aunt Minnie, and the Outstanding Individual Grassroots Advocacy Award by the American Society of Radiologic Technologists in 2015.

Paul La Plante researches astrophysics and cosmology, seeking the answers hidden at the origin of the universe. Two of his most prominent topics of study include Cosmic Dawn and Reionization, which is the era in the universe's history when the first stars and galaxies formed nearly 13 billion years ago.

La Plante has published many articles on simulations and theoretical studies of the early universe, and is a member of two major telescope collaborations: the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA), a radio telescope in South Africa, and the Simons Observatory, a microwave telescope in Chile.

His current work looks at improving methods for simulating the early universe, as well as better understanding the measurements from these telescopes. He is also interested in developing new machine learning techniques and applications for astrophysics and cosmology research.

In addition to research, he teaches data science courses in UNLV's Department of Computer Science and the Data Analytics program. La Plante also acts as the science outreach coordinator for the Public Communication Initiative at UNLV.

Alexander Barzilov leads the Nuclear Engineering Laboratory at UNLV where he mentors numerous graduate students in the areas of nuclear engineering, mechanical engineering, and nuclear physics.

The lab is at the forefront of novel radiation detection technologies in an effort to support national security and environmental management of radioactive facilities. He's also an expert in gamma spectroscopy, remote sensing of radiation using aerial and ground robotic platforms, neutron detection, active and passive assay of radiological materials, and reactor physics.

In 2021, Barzilov launched the Nuclear Security Science and Technology Consortium, which is designing and building a sustainable pipeline of student talent between the Department of Energy’s sites and National Laboratories, and the minority-serving institutions that are part of the program. 

H. Jeremy Cho is a UNLV mechanical engineer whose research specializes in converting water vapor into a drinkable form. Since moving to Nevada, he has focused on solutions to the Southwest water crisis through atmospheric water harvesting.

Cho has expertise in soft matter physics and phase-change heat transfer, and constantly looks for ways to convert energy more efficiently (fossil fuels, solar, geothermal, steam energies, etc.). His lab explores the use of soft materials, such as hydrogels, finding new technologies to slow the threats of climate change.

He received a CAREER Award from th National Science Foundation for his work on atmospheric water harvesting in 2022. Before joining UNLV in 2019, he was a postdoc at Princeton working with soft matter physics and did research at MIT on phase-change heat transfer.

Carrie Tyler is a marine conservation paleobiologist whose research focuses on understanding the evolution of underwater ecosystems, particularly how marine food webs respond to dramatic change, and the relationship between biodiversity and marine food webs throughout ancient history to modern day.

Tyler, who joined UNLV's faculty in 2022, examines the effects of prey consumption and environmental changes on ecosystems — especially in the modern rocky intertidal, or range between high and low tide lines. Her work also seeks to assess the quality of fossils and determine ways to use that information to inform paleoecology, as well as conservation law and policy.

In addition to wrestling with topics such as past climate change and natural resources, students in Tyler's classes also learn about ecosystem functioning and recovery, habitat loss, and mass extinction.

Marie-Odile Fortier, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction, is an expert on sustainability in arid lands. Her research focuses on climate change, energy infrastructure, and analyzing how much the carbon footprint of different renewable energy, fossil energy, and bioenergy systems varies by location.

Prior to joining UNLV in fall 2022, Fortier taught courses on sustainable energy at the University of California, Merced and the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. 

In 2021, Fortier received a National Science Foundation CAREER award that supported her research in developing new geospatial methodology for energy life cycle assessments, to guide long-term planning of sustainable energy installations to lower climate change impacts.

Donald Price, a biologist and professor within UNLV's College of Sciences, is an expert on the evolution of species and the genetic factors that drive behavioral and physiological processes that allow species to diversify and adapt to their surroundings.

For years before joining UNLV, Price's work was based in Hawaii, which boasts high numbers of endemic species living among the islands' highly variable environments. At UNLV, his laboratory studies animals with wings, plants, and microbes. His work has explored a close relative of the common fruit fly called Hawaiian picture-wing flies (Drosophila), as well as ground beetles and endangered species such as the Hawaiian goose (nene), Hawaiian honeycreeper birds, and the Hawaiian hoary bat.

Price's research has been published in outlets including Ecology and Evolution, Molecular Biology and Evolution, and the American Journal of Botany.

Hans Rawhouser is an associate professor in the Management, Entrepreneurship and Technology department at UNLV’s Lee Business School. He investigates blockchain technology, entrepreneurial ecosystems, how entrepreneurs gain resources, and how entrepreneurs achieve social impact (for example, greenhouse gas emission reductions, poverty alleviation, job creation, and creation of supportive social networks).

Rawhouser's body of research has explored topics such as carbon offset projects in developing countries, entrepreneurial training in Central America, measurement of social impact, and benefit corporations. His scholarship is forthcoming or published in academic publications including Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Small Business Economics, Academy of Management Discoveries, California Management Review, and Organization & Environment.