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ECE e-News Brief (May 2009)
Congratulations ECE faculty, joint faculty, staff, and students, for your many accomplishments this spring. Our expanding newsletter now includes, more honors and awards, plus more grad and undergrad news and our first “Who Knew” feature.
In this issue:
We will publish the next newsletter this fall. Please continue to pass along your news tips and success stories. Also, take a moment to provide feedback and suggestions. Thank you for contributing so much to our success. Have a great summer. Selected news highlights
Behnaam Aazhang, J.S. Abercrombie Professor and Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering leads a team at the Centre for Wireless Communications (CWC) in Oulu to develop a technology in self organizing network topologies and operator-less radio access networks. The research tackles cognitive radio technologies using frequency spectrum efficiently and reconfigurable software defined radio (SDR) platforms. He is the Finland Distinguished Professor Programme (FiDiPro), a funding program by the Academy of Finland and Tekes. Recently, Professor Aazhang was featured in the publication, GIGA. GIGA is program that combines research and industrial projects in collaboration toward a common goal. In addition to project funding, GIGA offers networking, seminars, and market and technology surveys to its participants. Richard Baraniuk, Victor E. Cameron Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering will lead a $6.3 MURI project that aims to build upon advances in sensor design, signal processing, communications and robotics by developing new techniques for "opportunistic sensing." The project, which is funded by the Army Research Office, is expected to directly impact the design of future ground and aerial surveillance systems, making them more powerful, more reliable and better able to distinguish friend from foe. Rice coprincipal investigators include Lydia Kavraki, the Noah Harding Professor of Computer Science and professor of bioengineering; Wotao Yin, assistant professor of computational and applied mathematics; and Volkan Cevher, research scientist in electrical and computer engineering. Member institutions include the University of Maryland--College Park, the University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign, Yale University, Duke University and the University of California--Los Angeles. All MURI award amounts are subject to negotiation between the academic institutions and the Department of Defense research offices making the awards. The five-year grant resulted from a highly competitive program in which the department received more than 150 proposals. News release: http://www.media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=12589 Naomi J. Halas, the Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and professor of chemistry and biomedical engineering, and Peter Nordlander, Professor of Physics and Astronomy and professor of electrical and computer Engineering will join forces with the Los Alamos’ Chemistry Division Research Center to study solar photophysics, led by Dr. Victor Klimov. This study is part of the Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Frontier Research Center. The Department of Energy (DOE) and the White House announced 46 new multi-million-dollar Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) on April 27, 2009, in conjunction with a speech delivered by President Barack Obama at the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences. The EFRCs, which will pursue advanced scientific research on energy, are being established by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science at universities, national laboratories, nonprofit organizations, and private firms across the nation. Naomi J. Halas was quoted extensively on her research with graduate student Nikolay Mirin using lightbending nanomaterials and on the research of Yildiz Bayazitoglu, the Harry S. Cameron Chair in Mechanical Engineering, on treating cancer with nanoparticles and lasers. The news of the research was cited worldwide in many news channels. Naomi J. Halas, an award-winning pioneer in nanophotonics, and graduate student Nikolay Mirin created a material that collects light from any direction and emits it in a single direction. The material uses very tiny, cup-shaped particles called nanocups. In a paper in the February issue of the journal Nano Letters, coauthors Halas and Mirin explained how they isolated nanocups to create light-bending nanoparticles. The paper can be found at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl900208z?prevSearch=mirin&searchHistoryKey= Featured Honors and Awards
Dr. Naomi J. Halas elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences Professor Halas along with two Rice alums, philanthropist John Doerr and economist Karen Davis, joined the reclusive novelist, the U2 singer and a host of others renowned in their fields when they were elected members of the prestigious American Academy of Arts & Sciences. http://www.media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=12465 Center for Multimedia Communication Team wins Hershel M. Rich Invention Award CMC Director Professor Ashutosh Sabharwal, CMC Project Manager Patrick Murphy, and ECE graduate student Siddharth Gupta prove that innovation in wireless open-access research pays. The team has earned the 2009 Hershel M. Rich Invention Award for their successful invention, “WARPnet: A High Performance Platform for Research on Deployed Wireless Networks.” WARPnet began as a senior design project for Siddharth and turned into his MS thesis project. WARPnet is part of the WARP project in CMC, also headed by Dr. Sabharwal. Established by Hershel M. Rich, the award is presented annually to Rice faculty or students for an invention that demonstrates their creativity and originality. Hershel M. Rich, a Rice alumnus, received his B.S. degree in 1945 in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. Each team member received $2,000 and a certificate during the REA Student Awards Picnic on Saturday, April 25. For more information: http://warp.rice.edu/ and http://cmc.rice.edu/. Dr. Farinaz Koushanfar wins highly competitive Office of Naval Research Young Investigators Award Farinaz Koushanfar, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science, has earned the highly competitive Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigators Award (YIP) for fiscal year 2009. The YIP attracts outstanding new faculty members to naval research. It encourages their teaching and research careers by providing monetary support for a period of three years, with additional funding for equipment and collaborative research with a Navy lab. Dr. Koushanfar won the award for her proposal, “Coordinated Statistical Modeling and Reconfiguration for Data Integrity in Cognitive Radio Networks,” which is classified under the naval priority research area of Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance. Her previous awards include National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award and in 2008 she was named to MIT Technology Review magazine's coveted 2008 list of the world's 35 Top Young Innovators. Koushanfar earned the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award in 2007. Read more about Dr. Koushanfar’s research: http://www.ece.rice.edu/~fk1/ IEEE Circuits and Systems Society selects Professor Yehia Massoud for Nanotechnology Council post The IEEE Circuits and Systems (CAS) Society has chosen Professor Yehia Massoud to represent the organization society on the Administrative Committee (AdCom) of the Nanotechnology Council. The IEEE Circuits and Systems Society is an association of IEEE members with professional interest in the field of circuits and systems theory. The IEEE Nanotechnology Council is a multi-disciplinary group that advances and coordinates the work in Nanotechnology, which is conducted in scientific, literary and educational areas. The council supports the theory, design, and development of nanotechnology and its scientific, engineering, and industrial applications. Professor Massoud’s appointment to the AdCom of the Nanotechnology Council is for a two-year term, which began in January 2009. Dr. James F. Young garners funding to train high school teachers Professor Young’s Teacher Quality grant proposal for the Rice Engineering Design Experience (REDE) is a two-year program to train high school teachers to teach the new state science course on engineering design and problem solving.The Teacher Quality Grants Program (TQGP) represents the largest federal initiative for using professional development to improve teaching and learning. At Rice, intensive summer workshops will be conducted in the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen with follow-up sessions throughout the academic year. The REDE workshop this June will be followed by a supplemental one-week training course for the high school Infinity Project. Related links: http://www.infinity-project.org/partners/partners_univ.html and http://www.thecb.state.tx.us/os/TQ/ Best Paper Awards
Yang Sun receives GVLSI best student paper award DSP Group team wins prize for best compressive sensing paper ECE Team wins Best Paper Award at IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing andCommunications Featured Events
Distinguished and Brice lecturers heighten visibility Four prominent electrical engineering lecturers visited ECE from January through March this year. Two were distinguished lecturers - Professor Magdy Bayoumi, hosted by Yehia Massoud and Professor Nader Engheta, hosted by Naomi J. Halas. The two Gene Brice Colloquium Series
lecturers were Professor Federico Capasso, hosted by Naomi J. Halas and
Dr. Abbas El Gamal, hosted by Behnaam Aazhang. Led by visibility chair,
Professor Kartik Mohanram, these impressive events are a vital
component of the department’s strategy for boosting visibility. Who knew?
Professors Naomi J. Halas and Jennifer West “had a ball” at the Houston Art Car Parade in May, riding Rice's entry. The car was covered in gold balls to represent their invention, AuroShells, the nanoparticles currently being tested as a way to destroy cancer without damaging healthy tissue. Read more: http://www.explore.rice.edu/explore/2009_Art_Car_Parade.asp?SnID=865674272 Faculty Update
Jones College recognizes outstanding associate Professor Lin Zhong, Jones College Division Advisor (Engineering), has been named the 2009 Outstanding Faculty Associate. “Each year, the colleges select one faculty associate for this honor and Professor Zhong has gone above and beyond to play an important role as a faculty advisor,” says Lisa Bryan, Jones College Coordinator. TI Visiting Professor Piotr Indyk As part of its 1996 gift to Rice, Texas Instruments established an endowment to bring professors from other leading universities to Rice each year. These professors spend the time teaching and participating in TI/Rice collaborative research in electrical and computer engineering. The 11th distinguished TI Visiting Professor, Dr. Piotr Indyk worked jointly with Professor Richard Baraniuk on compressive sensing research. He was visiting here from January-March 2009. A colloquium, "Sketching, Streaming and Sublinear Space Algorithms", was held March 3, in Duncan Hall. Dr. Indyk joined MIT in September 2000, after earning PhD from Stanford University, and is now Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He received Magister degree from Uniwersytet Warszawski in 1995. Indyk’s research focuses on computational geometry (especially in high dimensional spaces), algorithms using sublinear time and/or space, and streaming algorithms. Other research interests include algorithmic coding theory and pattern matching problems. He is a recipient of NSF CAREER Award (2002), Sloan Fellowship (2003) and Packard Research Fellowship (2003). ECE Remembers A mentor to many - Professor William L. Wilson - “Dr. Bill” ECE has lost a friend, a colleague, and a mentor to many. Professor William L. Wilson (known to many as Dr. Bill) passed away Tuesday, January 20, 2009. A specialist in semiconductors and electro-opto devices and lasers, Dr. Wilson was professor of electrical engineering at Rice University from 1972 and Resident Associate of Wiess College from 1978 until his retirement from Rice in 2006. He also served as interim Master of Wiess in 1983 and in a myriad of formal and informal roles on the Rice campus throughout his teaching career. Wilson’s teaching style was to “knowing the students and be a part of their lives.” The keeper of many Wiess traditions, he was arguably one of the most influential persons in the college's history. A celebrated teacher, he won the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching multiple times, as well as the George R. Brown Prize for Excellence in Teaching, during his 34 years at Rice. His personalized touch earned Wilson the Nicolas Salgo Distinguished Teaching Award in 2006.
Grad student news
Manjari Narayan wins Borg scholarship DSP Group member, Manjari Narayan has been awarded the Google 2009 Anita Borg Scholarship for the academic year, 2009-2010. The Anita Borg Scholarship is awarded to female undergraduate entering their senior year or to graduate students with a cumulative GPA of at least 3.5 on a 4.0 scale or 4.5 on a 5.0 scale majoring in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or other technical fields. Each Google Anita Borg Scholarship recipient will each receive a $10,000 award for the 2009-2010 academic year. Manjari graduated for the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, with a B.S. in electrical engineering and a minor in computer science. Her research is in the area of statistical image processing. She is currently working with Dr. Baraniuk on understanding the asymptotic optimality of nonlocal image processing algorithms. NSF selects Eva Dyer for 2009 Graduate Research Fellowship award Second year graduate student Eva Dyer has earned the highly esteemed National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF), which is awarded to students who have the abilities, accomplishments, and potential to contribute to strengthening the vitality of science and engineering. In the Department of Electrical Engineering, she is working with Victor E. Cameron Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Richard Baraniuk and Don Johnson, J.S. Abercrombie Professor Emeritus of Electrical & Computer Engineering, on the development of models for feature extraction and information processing in the primary visual cortex. With the NSF graduate research fellowship, Eva will continue her efforts in the study of information processing in sensory neural systems. Along with a team led by Dr. Andreas Tolias in the Neuroscience department at Baylor College of Medicine, Eva also works on the development of signal processing techniques for analyzing two-photon calcium imaging data collected from neural populations in vivo. Upon developing data analysis techniques to extract information from two-photon calcium data, the team plans to use this emerging experimental technique to test the predictions generated by the theoretical model that Eva and her co-advisors have developed. Abhilash Krishna wins Albert Schweitzer Fellowship to design and conduct cardiac education program Given the level of computational power at our disposal today, it has become possible to create accurate mathematical models of biological systems with user-friendly computer interfaces that lead to a deeper understanding of health risks, disease detection and prevention. Through his research in computational biology, ECE Ph.D. student, Abhilash Krishna, creates mathematical models that mimic cardiac cells in their behavior and promoting an understanding of what goes wrong at a cellular level in cases of cardiac disorder. Supported by the Houston-Galveston Schweitzer Fellows Program, Abhilash will have new and unique opportunities to make a direct impact on the health and vitality of our local community. Keenly interested in various community health issues and public service, Abhilash intends to work with schools through a collaboration with organizations such as SEEK (Student Engineers Educating Kids) and heart associations such as AHA (American Heart Association) to conduct presentations, demonstrations, and discussions that educate on cardiac electrophysiology, food and activity-related cardiac health risks, disease detection and prevention. ViaSat hands out cash awards for winning projects ViaSat sponsored course project competitions in ELEC 430 and 534. ViaSat awarded the top three projects. The first prizewinners were Guohui Wang and Bei Yin (first year grad students) who received $400 each for their project, “Subcarrier Mapping Schemes and Impact of Channel Estimation Errors in SC-FDMA.” Two teams were awarded second place prizes: Kanes Sutuntivorakoon and Tianlai Orthogonal won $175 each for “Space-time Block Codes.” Lu Lucia Sun and Jose Hernandez won $175 each for their project, “MIMO Spatial Multiplexing.” Kudos to Endowed Scholarship Award Recipient Corina Serediuc First-year graduate student, Corina Serediuc was awarded the 2008-2009 academic year, the Walter Loewenstern Jr. Endowed Scholarship. At $15,0000, this award is one of the most significant earned by ECE students. Corina’s goal is to earn a Master’s degree followed by Ph.D. degree from Rice University. Her 599 project research focuses on wireless communication and the study of a relay scheme. The aim is to discover new ways to improve algorithm detection and signal to noise ratios. Corina’s advisor for the ELEC 599 project is Professor Behnaam Aazhang. Thomas Barr wins the J.C. Pollard Graduate Fellowship Thomas Barr, first year graduate student, has earned a $15,000 J.C. Pollard Graduate Fellowship. His research focus last semester was on extending the Computer Architecture Group's Axon network system to interoperate with existing Ethernet networks. That system allowed a user to keep their tested Ethernet network in place as a backup while gaining some of the advantages of a high-performance network. This semester, Thomas is working on a system that allows a computer to translate computer memory addresses faster than current systems and to eliminate bottlenecks during data conversion. His advisor is Professor Scott Rixner, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Graduate student Melissa Duarte Earns Roberto Rocca Fellowship The Roberto Rocca Education Fellowship helps fund studies for exceptional university graduates from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Romania and Venezuela, toward the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering, at a university of the student's choosing outside his or her home country. Born in Cucuta, Colombia, Melissa Duarte received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogota, Colombia, in 2005, and the M.S degree in electrical engineering from Rice University, in 2007. An active member of ExCel, Melissa is working toward her Ph.D., in electrical engineering, with the guidance of Professor Ashutosh Sabharwal. Melissa’s current research is focused on the design an implementation of architectures for next-generation wireless communications, feedback based Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna systems, and the development of a Wireless Open Access Research Platform (WARP) for implementation and evaluation of algorithms for wireless communications. Undergrad highlights
ECE congratulates winners of REA merit awards Each year, senior and junior engineering students independently compete for merit awards offered by the Rice Engineering Association (REA). The REA awards committee bases its decision on the student's written essay, campus activities, honors, awards and cumulative GPA. The awards were presented at the REA Annual Student Awards Picnic in April. C.J. Steuernagel earned the Senior Merit Award and Robert LiKamWa was the Junior Merit Award winner. Each student received $1,375. Other year-end awards and honors • Bailey Basile and CJ Steuernagel– Texas Society of Professional Engineers Outstanding Student Engineer recognition and scholarship • Akshay Dayal – Rice Student Association Year-End Awards, Outstanding Senior award • Stephen Kruzick - ISA Management scholarshipPhi Beta Kappa Beta of Texas Chapter Selects ECE Students The department is proud to announce that the Beta of Texas Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa has elected Thomas J. Deitch and Aaron Hallquist members-in-course. Election to Phi Beta Kappa is an honor recognizing outstanding achievement in the liberal arts and sciences. To be considered for membership, a student at Rice must have completed at least 90 semester hours in courses that reflect the pursuit of learning for its own sake, rather than a focus on the development of particular professional skills. As an additional indication of intellectual breadth, at least 10 of these qualifying courses must be chosen from outside the division in which the student's major lies. Innovative seniors present award-winning designs A committee of Rice ECE faculty selected three top projects for innovation, demonstration of technical skills, and “real world” impact on the future, and oral presentations. The Senior Design Laboratory (Elec 494) final presentations were made on April 20. The First place winner was "Smart Antenna" - Naren Anand, Janice Chow, Thomas Deitch, and Carl Steuernagel, advised by Ashutosh Sabharwal. In second place, "Gigamesh Flash Memory” - Justin Nordin, Oleg Pesok, and Brent Stephens, advised by Lin Zhong. The third place winner was "Location Based Network" - Britt Antley, Rohan Balsaver, and Mohamed Jalaly, advised by Lin Zhong. The award winning designs were displayed during the School of Engineering Division reception in May. Congrats to Chevron Scholarship award winners Alysha Jeans junior, Baker College, and Lu Sun, junior, Brown College, earned $1,000 Chevron Scholarships for the 2008-2009 academic year. As a career, Alysha hopes to do work relating to aerospace technologies. Last summer, Alysha had the opportunity to work for the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory where she studied the effects of radiation on integrated circuits. She plans to return to NASA this summer for a second internship. Lu Sun is works with Professor Don Johnson, where signal processing is used for “art forensics” help the Van Gogh Museum sequence paintings. She is investigating new ways to determine the authenticity of Van Gogh paintings with thread counting algorithms. Lu also works with Professor Lin Zhong on a research project that introduces new functions and applications to mobile phones and personal companion devices. Winning projects in the Engineering Design Showcase recognized in April ceremonies The George R. Brown School of Engineering’s Best Interdisciplinary Design Project award went to a project that was entered under two Rice departments, Electrical and Computer Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. Students Varun Rajan, James Deyerle and Nick Eckenstein led the effort, Pipe Inspection Robot Prototype, which involves the design of a small robot that can traverse the interior of pipes ranging in diameter from 3 inches to 9 inches. The team received a $200 prize. Alumni spotlight
Bobak Nazer receives Berkeley’s Outstanding Thesis Award Bobak Nazer, B.S.E.E. 2003, Ph.D. candidate in Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, has been recognized for his work in Communications Networks. The Eliahu I. Jury Award is presented to EECS graduate students or recent alumnus for outstanding achievement in the area of Systems, Communications, Control, or Signal Processing. ECE Alum Receives IEEE Young Engineer Award Roger D. Pease, M.E.E. 2002, was honored with the Institute of Electrical Electronics Engineers Houston Section Young Engineer of the Year Award. The award is presented to engineers who have made outstanding contributions to their profession. Currently, Pease is a Texas Instruments employee where he studies the effects of Alpha particles on semiconductor memories. He has been an active IEEE volunteer, working on the Teacher In-Service Program and is an active advocate for the Texas Scholar’s Program in Fort Bend County schools. The Young Engineer of the Year award was presented February 16, at Omni Houston Westside, in conjunction with Engineer Week, February 15-22. ECE Research Awards Summary
Behnaam Aazhang National Science Foundation Office of Naval Research Office of Naval Research Anatoliy Kosterev Erzsébet Merényi Daniel Mittleman Year-end awards and honors summary
Behnaam Aazhang With Rice TILU team won the Texas Instruments Leadership University grant, July 2008 Richard G. Baraniuk Harvard University Law School Berkman Center for Internet and Society Award for outstanding leadership on open access education platforms, the Connexions project, May 2008 Richard G. Baraniuk and Yehia Massoud DARPA grant for “Theory and Practice of Analog-to-Information Conversion: Real-time Compressive Sensing and sub-Nyquist Signal Acquisition, July 2008 C. Sidney Burrus IEEE Jack S. Kilby medal for pioneering work on digital signal processing, November 2008 Joseph Cavallaro With Yang Sun, won a Best Paper awards for “A Low-power 1-Gbps Reconfigurable LDPC Decoder Design For Multiple 4G Wireless Standards,” at The IEEE System on Chip Conference, September 2008 With Yang Sun, won the Best Paper Award at the IEEE Workshop on Signal Processing Systems for “VLSI Unified Decoder Architecture for LDPC/Turbo Codes,” September 2008 Naomi J. Halas Named to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, April, 2009 Won the Nano/Bio Interface Center (NBIC) Award for Excellence in Nanostructure Research, University of Pennsylvania, October 2008 Junichiro Kono The Institute of International Education (IIE) Andrew Heiskell innovation in Study Abroad Award for NanoJapan Program, March 2008 Edward Knightly Elected IEEE Fellow for contributions to multi-hop wireless networks, January 2009 With Joshua Robinson won ACM MobiCom 2008 best paper award, September 2008 Farinaz Koushanfar Won the Office of Naval Research Young Investigators Award for “Coordinated Statistical Modeling and Reconfiguration for Data Integrity in Cognitive Radio Networks,” April 2009 Named to MIT Technology Review’s TR35, for developing new techniques that microchip designers can use to fight hardware piracy, August 2008 Yehia Massoud Selected by IEEE Circuits and Systems (CAS) Society for Nanotechnology Council, representing the organization society on the Administrative Committee (AdCom), January 2009 Daniel Mittleman Elected as a fellow of the Optical Society of America "for contributions to the development of techniques for sensing, imaging, and spectroscopy using terahertz radiation,” November 2008 Kartik Mohanram Won the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, February 2008 Ashutosh Sabharwal With Patrick Murphy and Siddarth Gupta, won the Hershel M. Rich Invention Award for "WARPnet: A High Performance Platform for Research on Deployed Wireless Networks", April 2009 Lin Zhong With Jiayang Liu, Zen Wang, and Motorola Labs, won the IEEE Pervasive Computing Conference, Best Paper Award, March 2009 MobileHCI best paper award for “Understanding Human-Battery Interaction on Mobile Phones”, September 2008 James F. Young Awarded Teacher Quality grant for the Rice Engineering Design Experience (REDE) |
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