Feb 14, 2024
By Victoria Grdina
The School of Computing’s Dr. Massimiliano Pierobon has been named a Susan J. Rosowski Associate Professor.
The Susan J. Rosowski Professorship recognizes faculty at the associate professor level for their contributions in research and teaching, who show exceptional promise for future excellence, and who have achieved distinguished records of scholarship or creative activity. The five-year, one-time appointment professorship carries a $3,000 annual stipend.
“I am deeply honored to receive this appointment,” Pierobon said. “I am genuinely humbled knowing that some of the best faculty from the former Department of Computer Science and Engineering, now School of Computing, received the Susan J. Rosowski Professorship in the past.”
The Rosowski Professorship is named in honor of the late Susan J. Rosowski (1942-2004), who at the time of her death was the Adele Hall Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. She established the (Willa) Cather Project, and is credited with igniting renewed regional, national and international interest in Willa Cather's works. In 2004, she received the University of Nebraska's Outstanding Research and Creative Activity Award.
Pierobon’s research interests are in molecular communication theory for nanonetworks, communication engineering applied to intelligent drug delivery systems, and biological circuit network engineering. Pierobon also holds a courtesy appointment at the Department of Biochemistry, and he is a Fellow of the National Strategic Research Institute (NSRI). He is the co-editor in chief of Nano Communication Networks (Elsevier), and an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing. Selected honors: 2011 Georgia Tech BWN Lab Researcher of the Year Award, 2013 IEEE Communications Letters Exemplary Reviewer Award, UNL CSE Upper Ugrad and Graduate Level Teaching Award in 2016 and 2017, 2017 IEEE INFOCOM Best Paper Runner-up Award and ACM NanoCom Best Paper Award, 2020 ACM NanoCom Outstanding Milestone Award, and 2019-2020 and 2022-2023 UNL College of Engineering Excellence in Research Awards. Dr. Pierobon is also a member of the UNL Faculty Senate.
“I am truly eager to honor the legacy of Professor Rosowski at our institution. Her dedication to mentoring students through creative and innovative endeavors, alongside her scholarly contributions that catapulted Nebraska's literature onto the global stage, serves as a beacon of inspiration,” Pierobon said. “I am committed to continuing her legacy through my research in communication theory as it applies to biology, and to kindle a similar spark of interest and innovation.”