Authoring Team

Rajeevan Amirtharajah is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Davis. He received his B.S. in Electrical Science and Engineering, and the M.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994, 1994, and 1999, respectively. His research focuses on low-power mixed-signal integrated circuit design, power electronics, energy harvesting, and sensor interfaces. He has published more than 60 research papers and holds 23 U.S. patents.

Mark Atkins has been an associate professor of Electrical Engineering, Electrical Engineering Technology, and Computer Engineering Technology at Ivy Tech Community College, Indianapolis, Indiana since 2003. He has authored content for zyBooks since 2017. He has BSEE and MSEE degrees from Purdue University. He worked as a design engineer at IBM for 5 years and an application engineer at Intel corporation for 13 years before switching to academia.

Ryan Barlow obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Utah in 2012, his Master’s Degree in Science Education from the University of Maryland in 2016 and his PhD in Engineering Education from Utah State University in 2020. He is currently an Engineering Content Author with zyBooks, a Wiley Brand. His current work centers on transitioning traditional print textbooks to the online interactive zyBooks format making engineering textbooks more accessible.

Chris Chan is a Mathematics Content Lead at zyBooks. He earned a B.S. in Mathematics (2008) at Dalhousie University in Canada and an M.A. in Mathematics at San Francisco State University (2011). As part of the National Science Foundation Graduate Fellows in K-12 Education, he co-developed and taught mathematics classes and led weekly Math Circle sessions at Mission High School in San Francisco. He worked as a mathematics lecturer at Saint Mary’s College of California and as an adjunct mathematics instructor at Evergreen Valley College.

Alex Edgcomb is a senior Software Engineer at zyBooks and Research Specialist at the University of California, Riverside. He earned a B.S. (2008), M.S. (2011), and Ph.D. (2014) in Computer Science at the University of California, Riverside. He has published more than 25 research papers, including two best papers at the American Society for Engineering Education. His dissertation research focused on assistive monitoring of the elderly in an at-home environment. His post-doctoral research focuses on improving STEM education and student retention. Dr. Edgcomb served as a university lecturer in computer science, and continues to teach an all-online, asynchronous course via StraighterLine.

Tony Givargis is a Professor of Computer Science and Associate Dean in the School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. He received his B.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Riverside in 1997 and 2001, respectively. He conducts research in the area of embedded systems with an emphasis on embedded and system software and has authored over 90 peer reviewed papers. He is a named inventor on 11 U.S. patents and has co-authored two popular textbooks on embedded system design. Professor Givargis has received numerous teaching, service, and research awards, including the Frederick Emmons Terman Award, presented annually to an outstanding young electrical engineering educator by the Electrical and Computer Engineering Division of the American Society for Engineering Education.

Sandy Irani is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine. She received her B.S.E. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University in 1986 and her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1991. Her research area in theoretical computer science has focused on applied algorithms for resource allocation in computer systems. She has also worked in quantum computation. She has been teaching discrete mathematics to students in computer science for over 20 years and has won numerous teaching awards.

André Knoesen is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Davis. He received a B.S. in Electronic Engineering from the University of Pretoria, South Africa in 1980, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1982 and 1987, respectively. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America. He performs research in biosensors, materials, and their applications in electronic and optoelectronic sensor systems. He has published more than 100 research papers and holds 2 U.S. patents.

Matthew Liberatore is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Toledo, following 10 years at the Colorado School of Mines. He earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His current research involves the rheology of complex fluids and materials. His engineering education interests include using YouTube videos to create engineering problems and developing interactive textbooks. He has published over 75 papers and has won awards for teaching and research.

Adrian Lizarraga is a Lead Software Engineer at zyBooks and a Ph.D. graduate in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Arizona. He received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Arizona in 2010. His current research focuses on runtime optimization of embedded systems and data-adaptable embedded systems. He is a recipient of the NSF Bridge to Doctorate Grant and has published 4 papers.

A Univ. of Arizona ECE professor, Roman is an active researcher, has a popular textbook with a major publisher, and has won various student awards. He produced several of zyBooks’ materials and currently co-leads all authoring.

Susan was a professor at the University of Arizona where she taught a variety of computer engineering courses. She was also an active researcher and published numerous research papers relating to developing and deploying engineering education technologies and curricula targeted towards resource-constrained middle schools.

Bailey Miller is Director of Engineering at zyBooks and previously worked at Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX). He received his B.S. in Computer Engineering, and his M.S and Ph.D. in Computer Science, from the University of California, Riverside in 2009, 2011, and 2014, respectively. His dissertation research focused on embedded systems design and novel highly-parallel many-core computer architectures. He has published more than 10 research papers, and served as a university lecturer in computer science.

Oscar is currently an engineering content developer at zyBooks working on the Control Systems zyVersion. Oscar has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Prior to joining zyBooks, he was a mechanical engineering instructor at the University of South Florida (USF).

Nikitha Sambamurthy is an Engineering Content Lead at zyBooks. She earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Purdue University. Her research centers around the role of technology in engineering courses to assist student learning, as well as tools to provide pedagogical feedback to instructors. Her dissertation focused on the role of visible and invisible diversity traits in the hiring of engineers.