Alan Llavore | Office of Strategic Communication | (909) 537-5007 | allavore@csusb.edu
It was, as Qingquan Sun, described it, a surprise.
A large group of fellow faculty, administrators and staff walked into Sun’s computer science class on the morning of April 23, led by Cal State San Bernardino President Tomás D. Morales, to surprise Sun, a professor in the School of Computer Science and Engineering, with news that he was being honored with the university’s 2023-24 Outstanding Scholarship, Research and Creative Activities Award.
After all the congratulatory remarks, and after Sun thanked his students, fellow faculty and administrators for their support, he said, “This is a really big acknowledgment and also a surprise! I was not aware of this at all. I know this is the first time so many people rushed into my classroom!”
The entourage that accompanied the president to the third-floor classroom in Jack H. Brown Hall is an ongoing tradition at CSUSB, surprising unsuspecting faculty members in front of their students as they are recognized for their contributions to the university community.
“We are here to present the 2023-24 Outstanding Scholarship, Research and Creative Activities Award to Qingquan Sun,” said Morales. “It's an impressive accomplishment. I want to congratulate you. Our committee members and staff and senior administrators really look forward to acknowledging the work that our faculty do. And you can't be a great teacher unless you do great research in scholarship. It really goes hand in hand.”
Moreover, Morales said, “Like many of our faculty, he is a supporter of student research, and lists his students’ research achievements as a point of pride on his website.... And so I just want you to know how much we appreciate you. Provost (Rafik) Mohamed and I join the university awards committee in saying that Dr. Sun's achievements at CSUSB, and over his career, are truly extraordinary. We're really fortunate to have you as a member of our faculty, and we want to really acknowledge and express our deep appreciation for you as a scholar, as a researcher, but most importantly, as someone who really cares about our students.”
Mohamed said that Sastry Pantula, dean of the College of Natural Sciences, where the School of Computer Science and Engineering is housed, had long boasted about Sun. When he came up for promotion to full professor last year, Mohamed said, “And that was my, pardon the pun, first exposure to the sun.”
In all seriousness, he added, “I was blown away for all the same reasons that the president just said. Your scholarly works speak for themselves. The grants that you brought in, highly competitive. But the thing that is the most impressive about your work is just what the president said about how much it involves students and supporting student research – and especially students from underrepresented backgrounds in STEM. I just think that's completely remarkable. It's what we treasure most here at CSUSB.”
Pantula, like Mohamed, couldn’t resist a play on Sun’s name. He recalled that when he came to CSUSB in 2018, “I was looking through our faculty, and my first question always has been, ‘Who are our biggest stars?’ And he’s our star, the biggest one, Sun!”
And like Morales and Mohamed, Pantula pointed to Sun’s work with students. Referring to the name of the award, “We all are talking about the research. But what I want to mention is like what the president also said, how much he cares about our students and the student research. That has been his priority.”
In addition, he said, Sun has been instrumental in working to attract new faculty members to CSUSB. “So I really, really am grateful for his hard work, how he went out and got new faculty to our school, and I really appreciate that – not only the commitment for his research, but his student success priority and also bringing outstanding faculty to our college.”
Khalil Dajani, director of the School of Computer Science and Engineering, said, “On behalf of the School of Computer Science and Engineering, I truly appreciate the administration, faculty, as well as students, who support us and make us thrive in terms of our huge enrollment. Whether it is for the student service or whether it is for getting funds out of the state and federal government to support our underrepresented students, we really appreciate your service and thank you so much for this.”
The award comes with a $2,000 Faculty Professional Development Grant; being honored at the Faculty Recognition Luncheon; and recognition at the awardee’s spring college commencement ceremony.
Sun’s Ph.D. is from the University of Alabama in electrical and computer engineering. He has previously worked at the University of Alabama as an RA while pursuing his doctorate and as an assistant professor of computer engineering at Oakland University.
He joined CSUSB in September 2014 as an assistant professor. He became an associate professor in 2019 and a full professor in 2023.
At CSUSB, Sun runs an intelligent sensing and machine learning lab. His current research focuses on machine learning and computer vision, human behavioral analysis with wireless body/unobtrusive sensors and deep learning technologies, intelligent sensing application development for healthcare, and big data, data science, and AI in cyber-physical systems.
He received the College of Natural Sciences’ Outstanding Professor Award in Research in 2022.
The 2023-24 committee is headed up by co-chairs Stuart Sumida (biology) and Montgomery Van Wart (public administration). Other members include Shafiq Rahman (representing the College of Arts and Letters), Ghulam Sarwar (representing the Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration), Christopher Gentry (representing the College of Natural Sciences) and Thomas Long (representing the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences).
Sun has published 35 high-quality papers since joining CSUSB and is the first or corresponding author for two-thirds of those papers. More than 10 of those papers were published in top-ranking journals. He has been cited in Google Scholar more than 750 times.
To date, Sun has submitted 37 grant proposals to federal and state agencies, the CSU Chancellor’s Office and CSUSB. He had a significant 24 of the 37 accepted for funding.
It should be noted that some of these grant awards have been huge. For example, the latest awarded grants are an NSF S-STEM grant for $2.5 million, a California State Learning Lab grant for $1.2 million and an NSF HDR grant for $1.5 million.
His commitment to his field has included serving as the general conference chair for the first International Conference on Machine Learning and Intelligent Communications.
Additionally, Sun has served as the chief guest editor for Sensors journal, a guest editor for two international journals, and an associate editor for three prestigious international journals.
