By Rick Vacek | May 27, 2025
It took only one meeting to steer Dr. Justin Ruths and Dr. Zejiang Wang toward a relationship built on their autonomous driving research.
Then Wang was hired by The University of Texas at Dallas. Ruths was appointed as his mentor in the Faculty Mentoring Program, managed by the Office of the Provost, and made sure Wang’s first few months were anything but autonomous.
“When Zejiang interviewed here, I got really excited about the work he was doing,” said Ruths, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science. “Zejiang does a true application into the transportation space. It’s going to be a connector for a lot of people.
“It’s very easy to work with somebody when you’re excited about what they’re doing.”
The excitement goes both ways.
“We noticed that we had a strong overlap, with Dr. Ruths focusing more on the theory side and myself more on the application side,” said Wang, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering. “Then, when I got more of a chance to know Dr. Ruths, not only from the academic side but from the personal side, he’s also a very good person.”
Wang made his feelings clear when he nominated Ruths for the 2025 Provost’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Mentoring (Tenure-track) and included these sentiments:
No wonder Ruths won the award. This relationship is car karma.
For many people, the idea of being transported by a computer-operated vehicle is terrifying.
These two mechanical engineering experts share that hesitation. They say the technology needs a lot of tweaking to avoid wreaking havoc.
Ruths’ research has gravitated to the safety of autonomously driven vehicles, particularly when multiple vehicles are involved.
“Right now the industry is pretty much just talking about autonomy as in a standalone car that doesn’t use any information from the outside except for maps and things like that, largely because of vulnerabilities,” he said.
“As soon as you have another car telling you what it’s about to do, then you have to ask the question about whether you’re opening a new surface for attacks. Then you don’t know. They could be telling you the right thing most of the time, but then they could be telling you the wrong thing just because they got it wrong or because someone hijacked it as a new surface for injecting an attack.
“That’s where I say Zejiang entering is the glue. He certainly has more than just glue to hold us together; he has his own research portfolio. He bridges the gaps to help pull me and some of the other faculty into a real application and demonstration.”
Though Wang has never ridden in an autonomous vehicle, he is eager to embrace the new technology once the safety and energy-efficiency questions are answered.
If only this research would go as quickly and smoothly as his transition to UT Dallas.
Wang appreciated the way Ruths and other colleagues helped him adapt to teaching and encouraged students to sign up for his class. Even if he simply needed a table for his students, help wasn’t far away.
“Small details can be very important things,” Wang said.
Case in point: It meant a lot to Wang when he received his first Christmas card from his mentor.
Season’s greetings extended throughout the year.
“He is a model of professionalism, collegiality and kindness,” Wang wrote in his nomination. “… He also took the initiative to introduce me to the broader academic community, inviting me to lunches with colleagues from the System Dynamics and Control group.
“These gatherings not only enhanced my visibility but also helped me build meaningful connections.”
All it took was one connection in the Faculty Mentoring Program to put the start of his UT Dallas career in overdrive.