ucla ee annual report 2013-2014

H e n r y S a m u e l i S c h o o l o f E n g i n e e r i n g a n d A p p l i e d S c i e n c e

Electrical Engineering

Annual Report2013-2014

Electrical Engineering | 2013-20142

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Message from the Chairman 3Gifts from Alumni & Faculty: David Mong and Oscar M. Stafsudd 4-5Alumni Recognitions: Dariush Divsalar and Henry T. Nicholas, III 6-7New Members of National Academies: Chandrashekar J. Joshi and Alan N. Willson 8Faculty Highlights 4Stanley J. Osher 94Ali H. Sayed 104Mona Jarrahi 114Robert N. Candler 124Dejan Markovic and Ali H. Sayed 134Tatsuo Itoh 144Yahya Rahmat-Samii 154John D. Villasenor 164Suhas N. Diggavi 164Diana L. Huffaker 164Aydogan Ozcan 174Bahram Jalali 17Best Paper Awards 182013-2014 Oustanding Student and Teaching Awards 19Alumni Board 20Department Faculty 21-29New Books by Faculty 29IEEE and HKN Student Clubs 30-31Department Overview 32-33Industrial Affiliates Program 34

Message from the ChairmanProfessor M. -C. Frank Chang

Iam pleased to share with you highlights of our ac-tivities for academic year 2013-2014. Our faculty,students, and alumni continue to push innovation by

developing state-of-the-art technology while makinga positive impact on society and giving back to theelectrical engineering community and beyond.

The legacy of our department is carried on by dis-tinguished alumni. Two of our alums were recently recognized for their contributions in both academiaand industry — Dr. Dariush Divsalar (Ph.D. 1978) received the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal “forfundamental contributions to the theory and practiceof channel codes that transformeddeep space and other forms of wire-less communications”. BroadcomCo-Founder Dr. Henry T. Nicholas,III (B.S. 1982, M.S. 1985, Ph.D.1998) received the 2014 IEEEFrederik Philips Award for “exem-plary leadership and entrepreneur-ial vision in the commercializationof communications semiconductorsthat enable ubiquitous broadbandconnectivity”.

Our faculty also received variousrecognitions from professional soci-eties and academies. Among those,Distinguished Professors ChanJoshi and Alan Willson were electedto the National Academy of Engi-neering — the highest professionaldistinction accorded to an engineerin the United States. ProfessorStanley Osher was awarded the Gauss Prize, the high-est honor in applied mathematics awarded every fouryears. Professor Ali Sayed received the EURASIPAthanasios Papoulis Award for his contributions tosignal processing education. Three professors were el-evated to the status of Fellow by international soci-eties: Suhas Diggavi (IEEE), Aydogan Ozcan (OSA;SPIE), and Bahram Jalali (SPIE). For his illustriouscareer and contributions to UCLA Electrical Engi-neering, Professor Tatsuo Itoh was honored with a spe-cial departmental symposium in May 2014.

Additionally, Associate Professor Mona Jarrahi re-ceived the 2013 Presidential Early Career Award forScientists and Engineers (PECASE). Assistant Pro-

fessor Rob Candler was awarded the National ScienceFoundation’s CAREER Award, the federal agency’smost prestigious award in support of junior faculty.Professor John Villasenor was named a member of theCouncil on Foreign Relations (CFR), the non-profitorganization specializing in foreign policy and inter-national affairs, and Professor Diana Huffaker wasnamed a Distinguished Lecturer by IEEE.

Highlights in research include a US$15 millionDARPA-funded collaboration between ProfessorsDejan Markovic, Ali Sayed and colleagues from theUCLA David Geffen School of Medicine to develop

a wireless, implantable brain deviceto restore memory function. This in-novative device stands to improvethe quality of life for both civiliansand military personnel. ProfessorYahya Rahmat-Samii’s recent an-tenna research has contributed tospace missions since 2001 and arepart of NASA’s upcoming RapidScatand SMAP missions.

Our pursuit of excellence and in-novation is made possible only withthe support of our friends, sponsors,and industrial partners. David Mong(B.S. 1984) donated US$5 milliontowards the building of EngineeringVI, which will house facilities for re-search and administration as well asthe Dr. William M.W. Mong Me-morial Learning Center named inhonor of Mong’s father. Professor

Oscar Stafsudd and his wife Jacquie have pledged aportion of their estate to establish the JacquelineStafsudd and Oscar M. Stafsudd, Jr. Fund to providestudent scholarships and projects. Qualcomm and Me-diaTek USA Inc. both established two fellowshipseach for doctoral students to conduct novel research, aspart of the department’s Fellow-Mentor-Advisorframework, and five student fellows were selected forthe second year of the Broadcom Foundation Inte-grated Circuits Fellowship Program.

To all of our friends, alumni, collaborators and cus-tomers in industry, government and academia — weoffer our deepest gratitude for your continuous sup-port and guidance.

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Alumnus David Mong Makes Largest Single Gift from Asia to UCLAUCLA HSSEAS receives US$5 Million for new building Engineering VI

The UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineeringand Applied Science has received a US$5 milliongift from Hong Kong-based philanthropist and

businessman David Mong. The gift, the largest singledonation UCLA ever has received from Asia or from analumnus based outside of the U.S., supports construc-tion of the Engineering VI building, which, when complete, will be the school’s new 150,000 square-footanchor for engineering innovation.

In recognition of the gift, a 250-seat facility within Engineering VI will be named the Dr. William M. W.Mong Memorial Learning Center. The name is inhonor of Mong’s father, a leader in education, publicservice and international relations and the founder ofHong Kong-based Shun Hing Group.

“UCLA Engineering hasembarked on a major up-grade to our educational andresearch facilities, and DavidMong’s extraordinary con-tribution will play a criticalrole in educating genera-tions of UCLA engineers,”

said Vijay K. Dhir, Dean of UCLA Engineering. “It iswonderful to have dedicated alumni such as Mr. Mong in-vest in the future of the school that gave them their starts.”

“As a UCLA Engineering alumnus, I am pleased to sup-port the construction of the Dr. William M. W. MongMemorial Learning Center within Engineering VI,”David Mong said. “We hope that in the years and decadesahead, Dr. Mong’s legacy will continue to impact lives forthe better—far and wide.”

In addition to the learning center, the building willhouse three federally funded centers in the fields of nano-electronics and sustainable energy; state-of-the-art laboratories for research into new materials for use in in-dustrial and commercial applications; information scienceand technology labs; faculty and administrative offices; andthe entrepreneurial arm of the engineering school, the Institute for Technology Advancement.

Work on the $130 million project—which also has received financial support from other private donors andthe Department of Commerce’s National Institute ofStandards and Technology—began in 2012. The firstphase of construction is scheduled for completion in2015. The second phase, which will incorporate the Dr.William M. W. Mong Memorial Learning Center, is inthe planning stages.

David Mong, who received his bachelor’s degree inElectrical Engineering from UCLA in 1984, is vicechairman of the Shun Hing Group. Founded by William

Mong in 1953, the Shun Hing Groupstarted as the authorized distributor inHong Kong and Macau of electronicproducts made by Panasonic. Shun Hingwas an early champion of the use of elec-trical goods to ease the traditional bur-dens of domestic life in Hong Kong, andbecame famous for helping to developand market rice cookers sold in Asia andaround the world. The firm also has anactive charitable arm, the Shun HingEducation and Charity Fund.

“We owe our very existence to thecommunities that sustain our businessand we never forget that social responsi-bility is a cornerstone of our corporate responsibilities,” David Mong said.

—by Bill Kisliuk

David Mong contributed toEngineering VI, currentlyunder contruction

Professor Stafsudd Donates US$1 Millionfor Electrical Engineering Undergraduates

Professor Oscar M. Stafsudd is a true Bruin withblue and gold running through his veins. UCLA ishis second home, where he received his bachelor’s

and master’s degrees in physics in 1959 and 1961, re-spectively, and his doctorate degree in physics with aspecialization in spectroscopy in 1967. In March 1967,he was appointed assistant professor at the ElectricalEngineering Division. In 1972, Professor Stafsudd waspromoted to associate professor and in 1980, to fullprofessor.

Early in his career, he had a fascination for crystalgrowth and lasers. He delved into research to developnew kinds of lasers and laser materials. Interests in solidstate physics (semi-conductors) led to research on low-cost efficient solar cells and infrared detector systems.His current research, in collaboration with ProfessorWarren Grundfest, is in the area of biomedical imagingutilizing new technologies in fast temporal fluorescenceand real-time Raman imaging.

Students call Professor Stafsudd a walking encyclo-pedia with interesting stories. He has a strong memoryfor just about anything from movies, travel, general facts,history, and of course, his love for fast cars.

Professor Stafsudd began his technical career work-ing as a research physicist for the Rockwell Science Center and later Hughes Research Laboratories wherehis wife, Jacquie, joined him. Jacquie is a Bruin too, getting her bachelor’s degree in physics where thetwo of them first met.

In the spirit of gratitude, Profes-sor Stafsudd and Jacquie signed adeed pledging 25% of the resid-ual from their estate to theJacqueline Stafsudd and OscarM. Stafsudd, Jr. Fund in theUCLA Henry Samueli Schoolof Engineering and AppliedScience. The fund is intendedto play a vital role in support-ing undergraduate scholar-ships and research at thediscretion of the chair ofthe Electrical Engineer-ing Department. Thecurrent value of

the pledged asset is at least US$1 million.“We are grateful for the opportunities that have been

given to us and our children by UCLA—the excellent ed-ucation that has made possible our successful technical ca-reers. This is our way of expressing our gratitude,” sharesProfessor Stafsudd. “Our hope is that others who have alsobeen blessed by their association with UCLA will con-sider supporting this school.”

At a recent conference the couple attended, they wereasked to share their passion in life. When ProfessorStafsudd’s turn came, he answered, “My school.” Thissimple statement comes clearly from a deep devotionand love for an institution, for a second home, which hassheltered him and has been a witness to his life. It is anoble gesture to offer back the richness of one’s life tohelp nurture future generations.

Thank you Professor and Mrs. Stafsudd for a trans-formative gift that will definitely impact more Bruinfamilies of blue and gold!

Gifts from

Alumni & Faculty

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Professor OscarStafsudd and his wifeJacquie have pledged25% of their estate to undergraduate

research and scholarships


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Alumnus Dariush Divsalar ReceivesIEEE Alexander Graham Bell MedalDariush Divsalar’s contributions have lead to many inventions in communications

Adjunct Professor Dariush Divsalar is the 2014 IEEEAlexander Graham Bell Medal recipient for funda-mental contributions to the theory and practice of

channel codes that transformed deep space and otherforms of wireless communications. Since 2010, he hasrenewed his research collaboration with UCLA Electri-cal Engineering, including Professor Richard Wesel,Professor Lara Dolecek, and their students. These re-search collaborations have been very fruitful and pro-duced many contributions to the field of coding andcommunications. The results were published in manyIEEE journal and conference papersin recent years.

Professor Divsalar received thePh.D. degree in electrical engi-neering from UCLA in 1978.Professor Divsalar’s innovative con-tributions to communications systemshave provided advancements leading tomore reliable and efficient transmissionand reception of data for wireless net-works and deep space communications.Professor Divsalar’s channel coding inno-vations have led to state-of-the art tech-nology and represent the most advancedhigh-performance coding schemes stan-dardized for space communications today.

Channel codes are used to protect data transmissionand storage in the presence of errors. Perhaps best knownfor his work on understanding turbo codes, which werethe first practical codes to closely approach channel ca-pacity, Professor Divsalar optimized and standardizedturbo codes for space applications. He also co-inventeda new class of protograph-based low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes for efficient information transferover noisy channels. Known as Accumulate Repeat Ac-cumulate codes, the technique is based on accumulators,puncturing, and a precoder to further improve perform-ance. These new codes are themselves an enhanced ver-sion of Repeat Accumulate codes previously co-inventedby Professor Divsalar. These new protograph-basedLDPC codes have become Consultative Committee forSpace Data Systems (CCSDS) international standardsand are being used in NASA missions.

Professor Divsalar also co-invented multiple symboldifferential detection, and trellis coded modulationschemes for interleaved fading channels. He contributed

significantly to bandwidth-efficient coded modulation,with work that paved the way to trellis coded modulationdesign for wireless fading channels that became the basisof the modern approach of bit-interleaved coded mod-ulation. This is an integral component of today’s WiFiand 4G wireless systems.

Divsalar also co-invented the parallel partial interfer-ence cancellation scheme for multiuser systems, analyzedit, and showed its superiority in improving code divisionmultiple access (CDMA), which was an importantbuilding block of multiple access communications sys-tems. Professor Divsalar’s latest discoveries are impact-

ing the use of wireless, deep space, andfree-space optical communications forhigh-speed data links.

A recipient of the NASA ExceptionalEngineering Achievement Medal(1996), Professor Divsalar is currently asenior research scientist with the JetPropulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,where he has been involved with devel-oping state-of-the-art technology foradvanced deep-space communicationssystems and future NASA space explo-ration since 1978.

Starting in 1986, he has taught grad-uate courses in communications and

coding at Electrical Engineering Departments at UCLAand at California Institute of Technology. Professor Di-vsalar has published more than 250 papers, co-authoredthe book An Introduction to Trellis Coded Modulation withApplications, contributed to three other books, and holds22 U.S. patents. The IEEE Communication Society se-lected one of his papers for inclusion in the book The Bestof the Best: Fifty Years of Communications and NetworkingResearch, containing the best 56 key research papers everpublished in the Society’s 50-year history.

Professor Divsalar was a co-recipient of the 1988 BestPaper Award of the IEEE Transactions on VehicularTechnology. He was also a co-recipient of the joint paperaward of the IEEE Information Theory and IEEECommunication Theory societies in 2008. He has re-ceived over 50 NASA Tech Brief awards for his innova-tions. He became a Fellow of IEEE in 1997 forcontributions to the analysis and design of coding andmodulation techniques for satellite, mobile, and deep-space communication systems.


Alumnus Henry T. Nicholas, III Receives 2014 IEEE Frederik Philips Award Broadcom co-founder recognized for leadership and commercializing system-on-chip

The creativity, vision, and technical expertise of HenryT. Nicholas, III drove one of the most successful innovators of communications semiconductor tech-

nology to bring broadband connectivity to the masses.The IEEE selected Dr. Nicholas for the 2014 FrederikPhilips Award “for exemplary lead-ership and entrepreneurial visionin the commercialization ofcommunications semiconductorsthat enable ubiquitous broadbandconnectivity.”

Working out of a spare room inhis apartment with a $5,000 in-vestment, Dr. Nicholas co-foundedBroadcom Corporation with Pro-fessor Henry Samueli in 1991.Under Dr. Nicholas’ direction,Broadcom pioneered the broad-band communications semicon-ductor industry by being the first tointroduce semiconductor solutionsfor broadband access over cable TVnetworks. He created and drove an environment thatthrived on and rewarded invention, resulting in prod-ucts such as Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11g WiFi, and dig-ital cable modems. Broadcom is a world leader inoffering integrated circuit system solutions, with an-nual revenues of over US$8 billion. According to com-pany estimates, 99.98% of Internet traffic today crossesat least one Broadcom chip.

“I have known Nick for over 30 years,first as a colleague when we both worked atTRW, then as a graduate student when Iserved as his Ph.D. thesis advisor, and thenas a partner when we founded Broadcom,”says Professor Samueli. “As President andCEO of Broadcom, Nick grew the com-pany from a two-person startup to becomeone of the fastest growing semiconductorcompanies in history.”

Henry T. Nicholas, III received a Bache-lor of Science degree in Electrical Engi-neering from UCLA, after attending theUnited States Air Force Academy in Col-orado. Nicholas also earned his Master’sand Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineer-ing from UCLA. His doctoral dissertation

on “Architectures, Optimization Techniques, and VLSIImplementations for Direct Digital Frequency Syn-thesizers” became the basis for the development of thechip that launched Broadcom.

After graduating from UCLA in 1987, Dr. Nicholasworked at TRW, where he met Pro-fessor Henry Samueli. Nicholaslater moved to PairGain Technolo-gies as director of Microelectronics,before starting Broadcom Corpora-tion with Professor Samueli.

“Nick had a unique talent to drawout the very best in the people whoworked for him. He has an amazingbreadth of skills and had a deep un-derstanding of every aspect ofBroadcom’s business including thetechnology issues, the financial is-sues, the marketing and sales issues,and the manufacturing issues,”addsProfessor Samueli. “Nick is one ofthe most driven individuals I have

ever met. He is indeed a force to be reckoned with.Congratulations on this well-deserved award.”

An IEEE Member, Dr. Nicholas is now retired fromBroadcom. In 2006, he founded The Henry T. Nicholas,III Foundation to improve the quality of life throughinvestments in victim’s rights, education, youth sports,technology, medical research, and national defense.

— by Henry Samueli / IEEE

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Alumni Recognition

Henry & Henry: Dr. Nicholaswith Professor Samueli movinginto the first Broadcom officein Westwood in 1992

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Chandrashekhar Joshiwas recognized by the academy for“contributions to the development of laser and beam-dri-ven plasma accelerators.” Joshi is known as the founder ofthe experimental field of plasma accelerators. At UCLAin the 1980s, he established the first group that proposed

to significantly shrink the sizeand cost of particle acceleratorsby using charged density waves inplasmas (or ionized gas) usingpowerful laser pulses or particlebeams.

Joshi’s UCLA group remainsat the forefront of its field, andthe lab has nurtured many stu-dents and researchers who havegone on to form their own re-search teams. In addition to

plasma accelerators, Joshi has advanced the understandingof nonlinear optics of plasmas, laser fusion and basicplasma physics.

“This is a great honor,” Joshi said. “I have been fortu-nate to have spent my research career at UCLA withsupportive colleagues and staff and to have had contin-uous support from the Department of Energy. I haveworked with many generations of brilliant students andresearchers whose effort is being recognized by this elec-tion to the National Academy of Engineering.”

Joshi has received numerous previous awards for hiswork, including the American Physical Society’s JamesClerk Maxwell Prize and Excellence in Plasma PhysicsAward, the IEEE’s Particle Accelerator Science andTechnology Award, the USPAS Prize for AcceleratorPhysics and Technology, and the AAC Prize for Advanced Accelerator Concepts. He is a fellow of theAmerican Physical Society, IEEE and the Institute ofPhysics. He is also the recipient of the Distinguished En-gineering Educator Award from the Engineers’ Council.

Alan N. Willson, Jr. was recognized by the academy for“contributions to the theory and applications of digitalsignal processing.” Among other accomplishments,Willson has played an important role in the field of cir-cuits and systems. He and his students have been

responsible for cutting-edge research in theory and applica-tion of digital signal processing(including very large scale inte-gration, or VLSI, implementa-tions), digital filter design andnonlinear circuit theory.

Willson received his Ph.D. inelectrical engineering fromSyracuse University in 1967. Heworked first for IBM and thenat Bell Laboratories before join-

ing the UCLA faculty in 1973. He was named full pro-fessor in 1976 and, while continuing his teaching andresearch, served as the School of Engineering’s assistantdean for graduate studies from 1977 to 1981 and asso-ciate dean from 1987 to 2001.

He retired from full-time teaching last year but iscontinuing his affiliation with UCLA through a three-year appointment as research professor.

Among the many notable honors Willson has re-ceived are the Vitold Belevitch Award from the IEEECircuits and Systems Society, the IEEE Leon K. Kirchmayer Graduate Teaching Award, and the GeorgeWestinghouse Award from the American Society forEngineering Education. He is the only person to havetwice received the W.R.G. Baker Prize Paper Award forbest paper published in all IEEE journals, transactionsand magazines. He holds numerous patents through hiscompany Pentomics, and has contributed valuable tech-nology to industrial clients.

— by Matthew Chin and Bill Kisliuk

Professors Joshi and Willson Elected to National Academy of EngineeringTwo faculty members from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science elected

to the National Academy of Engineering, among the highest professional distinctions that can be

awarded to engineers in the U.S.

Chandrashekhar Joshi, distinguished professor of electrical engineering, and Alan N. Willson,

Jr., distinguished professor emeritus of electrical engineering and holder of the Charles P.Reames Chair in Electrical Engineering, were among 67 new members elected to the NAEfor their outstanding contributions to engineering research, practice or education.


Electrical Engineering | 2013-2014 9

Stanley J. Osher, UCLA professor at Electrical Engi-neering, Mathematics and former director of Applied Mathematics, is the third person ever to be

awarded the prestigious Gauss Prize, the highest honorin applied mathematics.

A UCLA professor since 1977, Osher received theaward during the opening ceremony of the InternationalCongress of Mathematicians in Seoul, South Korea. Theprize, named for 19th century mathematician CarlFriedrich Gauss, was first awarded at the 2006 congress.(The event is held every four years.)

The citation honoring Professor Osher mentions thathis “influential contributions to several fields in appliedmathematics and his far-ranging inventions havechanged our conception of physical, perceptual, andmathematical concepts, giving us new tools to compre-hend the world.”

Professor Osher pioneered in a wide range of fieldsand the mathematical techniques that have been highlyinfluential. The results of his research have improvedMRI scans and medical image analysis, advanced com-puter chip design, helped law enforcement agenciescombat crime, enhanced computer vision, provided newways to forecast weather and identify the source of earth-quakes, and even revolutionized computer modeling forthe design of supersonic jets.

“I am truly honored to have been awarded the thirdCarl Friedrich Gauss prize,” Osher said. “The previouswinners were two of my scientific heroes. I am gratefulto the UCLA administration and to my colleagues in themathematics department for their support in buildingup applied mathematics, and to many of my colleaguesoutside of the department for the incredibly pleasant

interdisciplinary research atmosphere that exists here.”“I’d also like to thank my sister, Sondra Jaffe, for con-

vincing me that we could both join the middle class bybecoming mathematicians in the post-Sputnik era.”

Osher has created innovative numerical methods tosolve partial differential equations, and analyzed algo-rithms and their underlying partial differential equations.He also produced a new method for accurately describ-ing how objects change shapes — predicting how, for ex-ample, a drop of oil floating in water will morph basedon currents in the water, including what would happenif the drop of oil divided in two or merged with anotherdrop of oil.

The recipient of many previous awards, Osher waselected in 2005 to the National Academy of Sciences, andin 2009 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.He has been an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow and a FulbrightFellow, and was selected to give a plenary address at the2010 International Conference of Mathematicians andthe John von Neumann Lecture at the 2013 meeting ofthe Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

Professor Osher was among the top 1 percent of themost frequently cited scholars in both mathematics andcomputer science between 2002 and 2012. His researchwas the subject of the three-day “Osher Fests” at UCLAin 2002 and 2012.

Osher also is the director of special projects atUCLA’s NSF-funded Institute for Pure and AppliedMathematics, where he has organized and partici-pated in numerous workshops and programs. He hassaid of his own research, “I write the algorithms thatmake the computers sing. I’m the Barry Manilow ofmathematics.” — by Stuart Wolpert

Professor Stanley J. Osher Earns Highest Honor in Applied Mathematics

Faculty Highlights

Photo by Christelle Nahas

Faculty

Highlights

10 Electrical Engineering | 2013-2014

Professor Ali H. Sayed, who directs the UCLA Adap-tive Systems Laboratory (www.ee.ucla.edu/asl), continues to garner outstanding recognitions from

various societies for his research and educational accom-plishments. An accomplished researcher and a prolific author, he is the author or co-author of six books and over440 scholarly publications. He is recognized internation-ally for his leadership in the broad area of statistical signalprocessing. His research involves several areas of inquiryincluding adaptation and learning, network science,

information processing theories, and biologically-inspireddesigns. He has published authoritative textbooks on thesubject of adaptation and learning, which are now used asreferences at many institutions worldwide: Fundamentalsof Adaptive Filtering (2003) and Adaptive Filters (2008).The first textbook was recognized for its quality andawarded the 2005 Terman Award by the American Soci-ety of Engineering Education. He has also recently pub-lished the monograph Adaptation, Learning, andOptimization over Networks (2014).

In 2014, Sayed was recognized by Thomson Reuters asa Highly Cited Researcher, one of three faculty members

in Electrical Engineering to receive this recognition; theother two are Professors Tatsuo Itoh and Stanley Osher.Researchers on the list have published influential articlesthat are ranked among the top one percent of the mostcited works in their fields, earning them the mark of exceptional impact. The study assessed papers indexed between 2002 and 2012.

In 2014, he was also awarded the Athanasios PapoulisAward from the European Association for Signal Process-ing for his “fundamental contributions to the advancement

of research and education in adaptive andstatistical signal processing.” The awardhonors scientists whose work has had amajor impact on signal processing edu-cation.

In 2013, he was awarded the Merito-rious Service Award from the IEEE Sig-nal Processing Society for his “exemplaryservice to and leadership in the SignalProcessing Society.” Despite an active re-search schedule, Professor Sayed hasbeen diligent in serving the Signal Pro-cessing community in various capacities.Among other roles, he served as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions onSignal Processing (2003-2005), GeneralChairman of ICASSP 2008, and Vice-President of Publications of the IEEESignal Processing Society (2009-2011).He also served as member of the Boardof Governors (2007-2011), AwardsBoard (2005), Publications Board (2003-2005), Conference Board (2007-2011),Technical Directions Board (2008-2009), and Long Range Planning Com-

mittee (2007-2009) of the same society.Professor Sayed’s work has been recognized with sev-

eral other recent awards including the 2013-2015 Lever-hulme Visiting Professorship Award (United Kingdom)and the 2012 Technical Achievement Award from theIEEE Signal Processing Society for his “fundamental con-tributions to adaptive and statistical signal processing.” Hewas also elevated in 2012 to the grade of Fellow by theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science(AAAS), publisher of the journal Science. He has also beenawarded several Best Paper Awards from IEEE, includingmost recently in 2012.

Professor Ali H. Sayed Receives Multiple Recognitions

Professor Sayed(center) with hisstudents

Professor Mona Jarrahi Receives Presidential Early Career Award

Associate Professor Mona Jarrahi received the 2013Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists andEngineers (PECASE). This is the highest recognition

presented by the President of the United States to youngscientists in the early stages of their independent researchcareers for their exceptional achievements in their researchwhich keeps the country in the forefront of science andtechnology in the global arena.

PECASE was established by President Bill Clintonin 1996 and is organized by the Office of Science andTechnology Policy within the Executive Office of thePresident. Awardees are selected for their pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and tech-nology and their commitment to community service asdemonstrated through scientific leadership, public edu-cation or community outreach.

“The impressive achievements of these early-stage scientists and engineers are promising indicators of evengreater successes ahead,” President Obama said in announcing the awards. “We are grateful for their com-mitment to generating the scientific and technical ad-vancements that will ensure America’s global leadershipfor many years to come.”

Professor Jarrahi’s research focuses on ultrafast electronic

and optoelectronic devices and integrated systems for ter-ahertz/millimeter-wave sensing, imaging, computing, andcommunication systems by utilizing novel materials,nanostructures, quantum well structures, electromechani-cal structures, as well as innovative nano-plasmonic con-cepts. The pioneering research conducted by ProfessorJarrahi and her outstanding achievements have receivedsignificant attention from scientific and industrial communities, and have been recognized by numerous pres-tigious awards including the Early Career Award in Nan-otechnology from the IEEE Nanotechnology Council;Outstanding Young Engineer Award from the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society; Booker Fel-lowship from the United States National Committee ofthe International Union of Radio Science; Grainger Foun-dation Frontiers of Engineering Award from NationalAcademy of Engineering; Young Investigator Awards fromthe Army Research Office, the Office of Naval Research,and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency;Early Career Award from the National Science Founda-tion; the Elizabeth C. Crosby Research Award from theUniversity of Michigan; and best-paper awards at the In-ternational Microwave Symposium and InternationalSymposium on Antennas and Propagation.

ProfessorJarrahi (5th from the right,front row) at theWhite House

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Faculty Highlights


Photo: White House Press Relesae

Assistant Professor Robert N. Candler received theNational Science Foundation CAREER award forhis work on microscale magnetic devices for next

generation free electron lasers. The free electron laser(FEL) is a special class of laser that is capable of pro-ducing a very high brightness light over a wide range ofphoton energy. It operates by accelerating a beam ofelectrons using quadrupole optics, and converting theelectron energy into coherent radiation with the use ofthe magnetic field of an undulator.

These coherent x-rays can be used in phase contrastimaging, which offers up to 1000x better resolution ofsoft tissue compared to conventional x-ray imaging.These x-rays can also be used for atomic scale imagingat ultrafast timescales for investigation of fundamentalmolecular structure in chemistry and biology.

Current FELs can produce high energy, coherent x-

rays by injecting high energy electron beams into con-ventional undulators. However, there is currently onlyone x-ray free electron laser in the United States, and itis longer than one kilometer. The system is heavilyoversubscribed, and potentially high-impact experi-ments languish as they wait in line for access.

Professor Candler is pursuing an alternative approach to create FELs by miniaturizing thequadrupoles and undulators. This is possible due to re-cent advances in microscale 3D electromagnets, whichwill enable miniaturization of the entire FEL systemto meter-scale, much smaller than the current kilome-ter-scale facilities. By creating a new state of the art inhigh-strength quadrupoles and intense-field, short-pe-riod undulators, Professor Candler aspires to create anx-ray free electron laser with unmatched brightnessamong small-scale light sources.

Professor Robert N. Candler Receives the NSF CAREER Award


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Faculty Highlights

The UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineeringand Applied Science has been tapped by the DefenseAdvanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to

play a key role in an innovative project aimed at devel-oping a wireless, implantable brain device that could helprestore lost memory function in individuals who havesuffered debilitating brain injuries and other disorders.The four-year effort, to be led byUCLA’s Program in MemoryRestoration and funded by up to $15million from DARPA, will involve ateam of experts in neurosurgery,electrical engineering, neurobiology,psychology and physics who willcollaborate to create, surgically im-plant and test the new “neuropros-thesis” in patients.

This ambitious, first-of-its kindproject at UCLA builds on a 2012research by Professor Itzhak Fried,from the David Geffen School ofMedicine and lead investigator onthe project, demonstrating thathuman memory can be strengthenedby stimulating the brain’s entorhinalcortex, a region involved in learning,memory and Alzheimer’s disease.

Dejan Markovic, Associate Professor of Electrical En-gineering, will lead a group of UCLA HSSEAS re-searchers developing technology to stimulate and recordthe activity of single neurons and of small neuronal pop-ulations. Electrical Engineering Professor Ali H. Sayed’sresearch group will develop adaptive signal processingtechniques to detect and supress artifacts to enable thereliable recording of neuro-physiological signals.DARPA will provide US$4.5 million over four years forthe UCLA Electrical Engineeringeffort, contingent on researchersmeeting a series of technical mile-stones. UCLA partners include theLawrence Livermore National Lab-oratory and Stanford University.

Memory is the process by whichneurons in certain brain regions en-code, store and retrieve information.Various illnesses and injuries candisrupt this process, causing mem-

ory loss. Traumatic brain injury, which has affected morethan 270,000 military members since 2000, as well asmillions of civilians, is often associated with such mem-ory deficits. Currently, no effective therapies exist to ad-dress the long-term effects of these injuries on memory.

In a key part of the project, the research team will stim-ulate and record neuron activity in patients who already

have brain electrodes implanted aspart of epilepsy treatment. Researcherswill use this information to developcomputational models and determinehow to intervene with electrical stim-ulation to help restore memory func-tion. The models will be transformedinto therapeutics using technology de-veloped by Markovic’s team.

Professor Markovic said the goalis to create miniature wireless neu-ral sensors that are far more sophis-ticated —much smaller and withmuch higher resolution—than thosethat exist today. The sensors willtrack and modulate neural activitywith very precise spatial and tempo-ral resolution, allowing the device tocontinuously update and modulatepatterns of stimulation to optimize

therapy and restore memory function.“We are developing ultra–low-power electronics in

order to measure activity of specific areas of the brain,perform neural signal analysis and wirelessly transmitthat information to an outside device in close proximityto the implants,” Markovic said. “The implants and theoutside device will talk to each other. The goals are toprovide better therapy for people with neurological dys-function and help those with epilepsy and brain injury to

enhance and restore memory.”During the second phase of the

program, Professor Itzhak Friedwill implant the device in patientswith traumatic brain injury in clinical trial. The DARPA initiativeaimed at developing these implantable brain devices, Restor-ing Active Memory (RAM), sup-ports President Obama’s BRAINinitiative. —by Bill Kisliuk

UCLA Electrical Engineering Plays Key Rolein DARPA “Neuroprosthesis” ResearchProfessors Markovic and Sayed participate in a US$15 Million project to restorememory function in victims of brain injury

Ultra low power electronics to be developedat UCLA will be implanted in memory losspatients to restore memory fuctions

Dejan Markovic and Ali H. Sayed


Faculty

Highlights

May has always been a special month for ProfessorTatsuo Itoh as he was born in May many yearsago. May of 2014 was even more special for two

reasons. The first reason was that IEEE Transactionson Terahertz Science and Technology published its Mayissue with an article titled “Terahertz Pioneer: Tat-suo Itoh ‘Transmission Lines and Antennas: Left andRight’ ” to pay a special tribute to Professor Itoh asone of the significant contributors to Terahertz Sci-ence and Technology. In this nine-page article, theauthor mentioned “I was struck as much by his abil-ity to tackle almost any problem in microwave engi-neering, as his capacity and willingness to help anystudent or colleague who felt the need to call on his

services. The sum totalof Professor Itoh’s con-tributions, both profes-sional and technical,are so over the top, onefeels more like he rep-resents an entire de-partment, rather than asingle individual…”

The second reasonMay 2014 was special isthat the Electrical En-gineering Departmentheld a full-day specialsymposium on May 29:“Microwave Electron-ics—the Past, Currentand Future” to honor Professor Itoh’s distinguishedachievement as an educator and researcher in Mi-crowave Engineering and Electronics. The symposiumwas held in the UCLA Engineering Shannon Roomand was attended by more than 40 invited internationalscholars, engineers and UCLA faculty and students. Inthe symposium, Dean Vijay Dhir delivered a welcomespeech to the attendees and presented an honoraryplaque to Professor Itoh. The Department Chair, Pro-fessor Frank Chang, provided an introduction of theDepartment as well as an overview of Professor Itoh’ssignificant contributions to the Department.

The symposium was followed by ten technical pre-sentations delivered by internationally renownedscholars in the field of microwave engineering. Theguest speakers were representatives of the group of 78Ph.D.’s and many more post-doc and former studentswho studied under Professor Itoh’s supervision.Among them were Professor Samir El-Ghazaly, National Science Foundation ECCS Division Direc-tor; Professor Jenshan Lin, Chief Editor of IEEETransactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques; Dr.Allen Tran, Vice President of Engineering of Qual-comm; and others.

The symposium organizer, Professor Ethan Wang,said in the symposium that this is a long overdue eventto honor one of our most distinguished colleagues. Theattendees considered the special symposium a goodpractice and they expressed their sincere appreciationto the Department’s strong support of this event.

EE Department Holds Special SymposiumDedicated to Professor Tatsuo Itoh


Advanced Reflector AntennasFrom back of envelope antenna designs to

space missions

From an early age, thecosmos and the vastnessof the universe fascinated

Professor Yahya Rahmat-Samii. Ein-stein’s postulate that the speed of light is theultimate speed, and Maxwell’s discovery that allelectromagnetic phenomena—including light—couldbe captured in four simple mathematical equations pro-foundly excited him. Two major outcomes of Maxwell’sequations were: (a) light is an electromagnetic wave, and(b) time varying currents radiate electromagnetic waves.The latter conclusion highlights the importance of an-tennas. Like Van Gogh used brushes to create paintings,electromagnetic scientists paint the radiation of electro-magnetic waves with their antennas.

Four representative examples demonstrate how sim-ple back of envelope reflector antenna concepts haveevolved into the main antenna components for some ofthe most fascinating space missions.

WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) is aNASA Explorer mission that launched June 2001 tomake fundamental measurements of cosmology—thestudy of the properties of the universe as a whole.WMAP has been stunningly successful, producingour new Standard Model of Cosmology. The antennaconsisted of two doubly shaped offset Gregorian re-flector systems operating at frequencies ranging from20 GHz to 100 GHz and supporting five corrugatedfeed horns. With two other JPL colleagues, ProfessorRahmat-Samii provided the initial antenna design forthis Princeton/NASA Goddard mission. This hasbeen one of NASA’s most successful missions, pro-viding detailed maps of the electromagnetic radiationfrom the dawn of the universe, the Big Bang.WMAP’s data stream has ended.

Aquarius — The spacecraft’s mission is a joint pro-gram between the NASA and Argentina’s space agency,CONAE. Aquarius was launched in June 2010, withsensors at 408 miles above Earth in a sun-synchronous,polar orbit. Aquarius’ objective is to provide insight intothe effect of salt on the Earth’s weather and climate sys-tems by making the first space based observations ofvariations in salinity and creating global ocean salinity

distribution maps. Aquarius’ threeradiometers have antenna reflectors 8.2

feet in diameter that are able to scan a 242mile wide swath of the ocean’s surface.

RapidScat is an Earth observation mission to be de-ployed in September 2014. The entire science of remotesensing has allowed mankind to better understand theweather, land and oceanic interactions for much im-proved weather forecasts. RapidScat is a mission that isplanned to attach a scatterometer antenna system to theside of the International Space Station, providing dataabout scattering characteristics of ocean surface windspeed and direction. Professor Rahmat-Samii providedthe initial dual beam and dual polarization reflector an-tenna design. This antenna was subsequently optimizedat JPL and its scatterometer operates at the Ku band.

SMAP — NASA’s Soil Moisture Active and Passive mis-sion aims to better understand the role of soil moistureand salinity of oceans on weather prediction and otherrelated observation, requiring high resolution microwaveimages. The L-band frequency (1.4 GHz) is one of thekey frequencies for both radar and radiometer observa-tions. This is perhaps one of the most challenging an-tenna designs that Professor Rahmat-Samii has beeninvolved in. He provided the initial design of the antenna concept for this mission consisting of a largerotating offset mesh deployable reflector antenna. Theantenna was subsequently developed by JPL and indus-trial partners resulting in a sophisticated 6-meter offsetmesh parabolic reflector antenna. The mission is sched-uled to launch in January 2015.

It has been extremely rewarding to Professor Rah-mat-Samii to observe how simple back of envelope con-cepts evolved into very sophisticated antenna designswith the goal of enriching the knowledge of the uni-verse, the solar system and most importantly the Earth.Professor Rahmat-Samii feels very lucky to be part ofthese amazing scientific activities. He was so fascinatedby a typical reflector antenna shape that he designed thewinning IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society logo,using a rendition of the reflector shape. It now appearson all publications related to the IEEE Antennas andPropagation Society. All images are available on NASA websites

Aquarius

WMAP

SMAP

IEEE Antennasand PropagationSociety logo

Advanced Reflector AntennasFrom back of envelope antenna designs to

space missions

RapidScat

Faculty Highlights


Faculty

Highlights

In early 2014, Professor John Villasenor was named amember of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

As explained on CFR’s web site, their members are “agroup unmatched in accomplishment and diversity inthe field of international affairs,” and include “top gov-ernment officials, renowned scholars, business execu-tives, acclaimed journalists, prominent lawyers, and

distinguished nonprofitprofessionals.”

Villasenor was selectedbased on his work at theintersection of technol-ogy and policy. Vil-lasenor’s engineeringresearch has addressedareas including cyberse-curity, communicationssystems, networking, andsignal processing. In ad-dition to performing tra-ditional engineering

research, Villasenor has been very active in the broadertechnology policy dialogue. He is a nonresident seniorfellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DCand has written for the Atlantic, Billboard, the Chronicle ofHigher Education, Fast Company, Forbes, the HuffingtonPost, the Los Angeles Times, Scientific American, Slate, andthe Washington Post. In addition, he has provided con-gressional testimony on several occasions.

Professor Suhas Diggaviwas elected Fellow of

the Institute of Electricaland Electronics Engi-neers (IEEE) for “contri-butions to wirelessnetworks and systems.”

Professor Diggavi washonored for his contribu-tions to the theory andpractice of wireless net-work communicationsand network data com-pression. Research inwireless communicationshas several decades of storied history, but the under-standing of information flow over wireless networks hasbeen quite limited. The difficulty is due to the broadcastnature of wireless which causes complicated signal inter-actions. Professor Diggavi has recently developed a newapproach to make significant progress in understandingwireless network information flow, resolving several long-standing open questions in wireless network informationflow and network data compression. His work on wire-less networks has been recognized with several awards in-cluding the 2013 IEEE Information Theory andCommunications Societies Joint Best Paper award, the2006 IEEE Donald Fink Prize Paper award and the 2013ACM Mobihoc best paper award.

Professor John Villasenor Named CFR Member

Professor Diana L. Huffaker Named 2015 Distinguished Lecturer by IEEE

Professor Suhas N. Diggavi Elected Fellow of IEEE

D iana Huffaker, professor of electrical engi-neering in UCLA’s Henry Samueli School

of Engineering and Applied Science, has beenselected by IEEE as a 2015 distinguished lec-turer in the area of photonic devices. In thisrole, she will help lead the Photonics Societyin technical developments that will shape theglobal community through lecture and net-working at various society and technicalcouncil meetings.

Huffaker’s research interests are in thebroad study of directed and self-assemblednanostructure solid-state epitaxy, optoelec-tronic devices, including solar cells, and III-V/Si photonics. She is the director of theIntegrated NanoMaterials Core Lab, in theCalifornia NanoSystems Institute, which ex-plores a “bottom-up” approach and novel de-vices architecture using nanomaterial andorganic/inorganic interfaces to realize newdevice functionality.


Faculty Highlights

Professor Bahram Jalali Elected Fellow of SPIE

Professor and Northrop Grumman Endowed Opto-Electronic Chair in Electrical Engineering Bahram

Jalali was elected Fellow of the Society of Photo- OpticalInstrumentation Engineers in 2014 “for achievements insilicon photonics, opto-electronics and optical measure-ment science.” Professor Jalali has led innovative researchin the vast field of photon-ics with applications tobiomedical solutions andcommunications that isbound to put current stan-dards in the past.

Recently, he and his re-search team received greatinterest from peers inacademe and industry forthe anamorphic stretchtransform (AST) tech-nique in data compression which redefined optics andreal-time to compress data in a more effective way thatsurpasses widely used standards such as JPEG and JPEG2000 in terms of image quality and compression factor.The AST causes sharp features to be stretched more thancourse features.

Rooting from their time stretch technology to create

the world’s fastest camera, the team developed a high-throughput flow-through imaging system for real-timedetection of rare cells at an exceptional rate of 100,000cells per second, twice as fast as the latest automated mi-croscopes. The technology provides an advantage in termsof volume sample and runtime while providing high-sen-

sitivity, specificity and sta-tistical accuracy. Incollaboration with theBioengineering Depart-ment, the device showed apromising role in an accu-rate early detection of can-cer in the blood and onmonitoring efficacy ofdrug and radiation therapy.

Professor Jalali holds ajoint appointment in the

Bioengineering Department. His laboratory performsmulti-disciplinary research and development in the fieldsof silicon photonics and real-time instruments for bio-medical, communication and defense applications. In re-search, his mission is to solve critical problems faced byindustry through revolutionary approaches that enablerevolutionary advances in performance.

Professor Aydogan Ozcan Elected Fellow to OSA and SPIE

Professor Aydogan Ozcan has been elected Fellow ofThe Optical Society (OSA) and The International So-

ciety for Optical Engineering (SPIE) for his seminalcontributions to computational imaging, sensing andholography technologies, and instrumentation impact-ing bio-photonics and its applications to telemedicineand global health. OSA and SPIE are the leading pro-fessional societies in optics and photonics fields.

Ozcan’s research on computational photonics, bio-medical imaging, sensing and diagnostics techniques hasresulted in several high impact publications as well aspatents, which are currently licensed by the start-upcompany Holomic LLC, that Ozcan founded.

Professor Ozcan also received several other major awardsincluding the Presidential Early Career Award for Scien-tists and Engineers (PECASE), which is the highest honorbestowed by the United States government on science andengineering professionals in the early stages of their inde-pendent research careers. Professor Ozcan received thisprestigious award for developing innovative optical tech-nologies and signal processing approaches that have the potential to make a significant impact in biological scienceand medicine; addressing public health needs in less devel-oped countries; and service to the optical science commu-nity including mentoring and support for underserved

minority undergraduate and graduate students. Professor Ozcan also received the 2013 SPIE Bio-

Photonics Technology Innovator Award, the 2011 ArmyResearch Office (ARO) Young Investigator Award, 2011SPIE Early Career Achievement Award, the 2010 NSFCAREER Award, the 2009 NIH Director’s New Inno-vator Award, the 2009 Office of Naval Research (ONR)Young Investigator Award, the 2009 IEEE PhotonicsSociety Young Investigator Award and the MIT’s Tech-nology Review TR35 Award for his seminal contribu-tions to near-field and on-chip imaging, andtelemedicine based diagnostics.

18

Pape

r Awards

4 “Voltage-Induced Dy-namics in NanoscaleMagnetic Tunnel Junc-tions: Higher-orderAnisotropy Contributionsto Ferromagnetic Reso-

nance and Switching” by Juan G. Alzate with co-authors Dr. Pedram Khalili, Pramey Upadhyaya, Dr. Sergiy Cherepov, Dr.Jian Zhu, Dr. Jordan Katine, Dr. Juergen Langer, Dr. BertholdOcker, Professor Ilya N. Krivorotov and Professor Kang Wang

received the Best Student Presentation Award from theIEEE International Magnetics Conference (Intermag2014), in Dresden, Germany on May 4-8, 2014.

4 “An 8-Bit 4-GS/s 120-mW CMOS ADC” by ProfessorBehzad Razavi and postdoc-toral scholar Hegong Wei withUCLA alumni Peng Zhang

and Bibhu Datta Sahoo wasawarded the 2013 IEEE Cus-tom Integrated Circuits Con-ference Best Paper Award.

4 “A Blocker-Tolerant, Noise-Cancelling Receiver Suitablefor Wideband Wireless Applications” by David Murphy, Amr

Hafez, Ahmad Mirzaei, Mohyee Mikhemar, Hooman Darabi,Professors M. -C. Frank

Chang and Asad Abidi re-ceived the 2012 IEEEJournal of Solid-StateCircuits Best PaperAward. The Award waspresented at 2014 IEEEInternational Solid-StateCircuits Conference.

4“Anamorphic Transform and its Application to time-bandwidth compression” by Dr. Mohammad Asghari and Pro-fessor Bahram Jalali received the 2013 Best Paper Awardfrom IEEE International Symposium on Signal Pro-cessing and Information Technology.

4 “Quantize-map-forward Relaying: an ExperimentalStudy” by Professors Christina Fragouli and Suhas Diggaviwith co-authors, Melisa Duarte, Ayan Sengupta and Sid-dartha Brahma was selected for the 2013 ACM Sympo-sium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing(Mobihoc) Best Paper Award.

4 “Polyhedral-Based Data Reuse Optimization for Con-figurable Computing” by Louis-Noel Pouchet, Peng Zhang, P.Sadayappan and Professor Jason Cong was awarded BestPaper at the 21st ACM/SIGDA International Sympo-sium on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA ’13).The paper was published on ACM Press, February 2013.

Highlighting recent papers recognized in journals and conferences

Best Paper Awards



Student Awards

Henry Samueli Excellence in Teaching Awards were given toArthur Densmore (Lab course), Richard Dorrance (Graduatecourse), and Mostafa Majidpour (Lecture course). They are pictured with Chairman M. -C. Frank Chang and the Vice Chair forUndergraduate Affairs Oscar Stafsudd.

Chairman M. -C. Frank Chang is pictured with the Outstanding M.S. Research in Circuits & Embedded Systems winner Mark Gottscho, Outstanding M.S. Research in Physical & Wave Electronics winner Zhi Yao, and Ms. Yao’s advisor Ethan Wang.

The Outstanding Bachelor ofScience Degree RecipientTiancheng Zhao, pictured withChairman M. -C. Frank Chang

The Christina Huang MemorialPrize recipient Jingtao Xia andChairman M. -C. Frank Chang

Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation in Signals & SystemsHarish Arsikere; Advisor: Abeer Alwan

Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation in Physical & Wave ElectronicsArthur Densmore, Advisor: Yahya Rahmat-Samii

Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation in Circuits & Embedded SystemsFang-Li Yuan; Advisor: Dejan Markovic

2013-2014 Outstanding Student and Teaching Awards


Alum

ni Board

Asad MadniEE AAB Chair President, COO and CTO (Retired)BEI Technologies, Inc

Robert GreenAttorneyChristie, Parker, and Hale, LLP

Sharon Black Special Projects Program DirectorRaytheon

Vicky GihDesign Engineer & ProductLeadNorthrop Grumman

Daniel GoebelSenior Research Scientist Jet Propulsion Laboratory

William GoodinRetired Associate Directorof Alumni RelationsUCLA HSSEAS

David DoamiDirector, Program ManagerNorthrop Grumman

Leonard BonillaRetired Program ManagerRaytheon

The mission of the Alumni Advisory Board is to provide critical and supportive advice to the UCLA

Electrical Engineering Department in enhancing its leadership role in education and research.

Alumni Board


Asad A. AbidiDistinguished Chancellor’s ProfessorPh.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1981

Circuits and Embedded SystemsCMOS RF design, high speed analog integrated circuit design, data conversion, and other techniques of analog signal processing. 4National Academy of Engineering, 20074IEEE Donald O. Pederson Award in Solid-State

Circuits, 20074Fellow, IEEE, 1996

Abeer A. H. AlwanProfessor Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1992

Signals and SystemsSpeech processing, acoustic properties of speech soundswith applications to speech synthesis, recognition by machine and coding, hearing aid design, digital signal processing.4Distinguished Lecturer, ISCA, 2010-20114Fellow, IEEE, 20084Fellow, Acoustical Society of America, 2003

Katsushi ArisakaDistinguished ProfessorPh.D., University of Tokyo, Japan, 1985

Physical and Wave ElectronicsHigh energy and astro-particle experiments, Kaon raredecays and CP violation, ultra high energy Cosmic ray,Hadron Collider experiment.4UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award, 2010

Danijela Cabric Associate ProfessorPh.D., University of California, Berkeley, 2007

Circuits and Embedded SystemsSignals and Systems

Wireless communications system design; cognitive radionetworks; VLSI architectures of signal processing anddigital communication algorithms; performance analysisand experiments on embedded system platforms.4NSF CAREER Award, 20124Okawa Foundation Research Grant Award, 2009 4Samueli Fellow, 2008

Robert N. CandlerAssistant ProfessorPh.D., Stanford University, 2006

Physical and Wave ElectronicsMEMS and NEMS devices, micro/nanoscale technology development, magnetics, and the interface ofphysical microsystems with biology. 4NSF CAREER Award, 20144Northrop Grumman Excellence in Teaching Award,

20124ARO Young Investigator Program Award, 2012

M. -C. Frank ChangDistinguished Professor and ChairmanWintek Professor of Electrical EngineeringPh.D., National Chiao-Tung University, Taiwan, R.O.C., 1979

Circuits and Embedded SystemsPhysical and Wave Electronics

High speed electronics including ultra high speed/ frequency devices and integrated circuits for radio, radarand imaging system applications.4Academia Sinica, 20124National Academy of Engineering, 20084IEEE David Sarnoff Award, 2006

21

The Faculty

Department Faculty

Abidi Alwan ChangArisaka Cabric Candler


Chui Cong Dolecek FragouliChristofides Daneshrad Diggavi

Chi On ChuiAssociate ProfessorPh.D., Stanford University, 2004

Physical and Wave ElectronicsBioelectronics and Medical Devices, Heterogeneous Integration, IC Manufacturing, and Semiconductor Devices.4von Liebig Entrepreneurism Center Regional

Healthcare Innovation Challenge Award, 20114HSSEAS Northrop Grumman Excellence in

Teaching Award, 20114IEEE Electron Devices Society Early Career

Award, 2009

Jingsheng Jason CongChancellor’s ProfessorPh.D., University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, 1990

Circuits and Embedded SystemsSynthesis of VLSI circuits and systems, programmable systems, novel computer architectures, nano-systems,and highly scalable algorithms. 4ACM/IEEE A. Richard Newton Technical Impact

Award in Electric Design Automation, 20114Fellow, Association for Computing Machinery, 20084Fellow, IEEE, 2000

Panagiotis D. ChristofidesProfessorPh.D., University of Minnesota, 1996

Signals and SystemsControl of nonlinear, hybrid and distributed parametersystems, networked control, model predictive control,fault detection and fault-tolerant control, and processcontrol applications.4Fellow, American Association of Advancement of

Science, 20134Fellow, International Federation of Automatic

Control, 20114Fellow, IEEE, 2009

Babak Daneshrad ProfessorPh.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 1993


Wireless communication systems, High performanceVLSI architectures and testbeds for wireless systems.

Suhas N. DiggaviProfessorPh.D., Stanford University, 1998

Signals and SystemsInformation theory with applications to wireless andsensor networks, network data compression and storage,network secrecy, machine learning and large scale dataanalysis algorithms.4Fellow, IEEE, 2013 4IEEE Information Theory Society & Communica-

tions Society Joint Paper Award, 2013 4IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize Paper Award, 2006

Lara DolecekAssistant ProfessorPh.D., University of California, Berkeley, 2007

Signals and SystemsInformation and probability theory, graphical models, combinatorics, statistical algorithms and computa-tional methods with applications to high- performancecomplex systems for data processing, communication,and storage.4Intel Early Career Award, 20134NSF CAREER Award, 20124David J. Sakrison Memorial Prize, UC Berkeley, 2007

Christina FragouliAssociate ProfessorPh.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 2000

Signals and SystemsNetwork coding, wireless networks, security.4Distinguished Lecturer, IEEE Information Theory

Society, 2011-20134European Research Council Starting Investigator

Grant, 20094Zonta Award, 2008

The Faculty


The Faculty

Grundfest Itoh Jalali JarrahiGupta He Huffaker

Warren GrundfestProfessorM.D., Columbia University, 1980

Physical and Wave ElectronicsImage-guided surgery, lasers for minimally invasive sur-gery, magnetic resonance-guided interventional proce-dures, laser lithotripsy, micro-endoscopy, spectroscopy,photodynamic therapy, optical technology, biologic feed-back control mechanisms.4Pierre Galletti Award AIMBE, 20144Fellow, SPIE, 1996 4Fellow, American Institute for Medical & Biological

Engineering, 1996

Puneet GuptaAssociate ProfessorPh.D., University of California, San Diego, 2007

Circuits and Embedded SystemsCAD techniques to enable design aware manufacturing. VLSI physical design for manufacturability, robustness and low-power. Software and architecture methods tomitigate hardware variability and reliability issues.4IBM Faculty Award, 20124ACM/SIGDA Outstanding New Faculty Award,

20104NSF CAREER Award, 2009

Lei HeProfessorPh.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 1999

Circuits and Embedded SystemsModeling and simulation, programmable logic and reconfigurable computing, and embedded and cyber- physical systems for applications such as health care, electric vehicle and smart grid.4HSSEAS Northrop Grumman Excellence in

Teaching Award, 20054IBM Faculty Award, 20034NSF CAREER Award, 2000

Diana L. HuffakerProfessorPh.D., University of Texas at Austin, 1994

Physical and Wave Electronics

Directed and self-assembled nanostructure solid-state epitaxy, optoelectronic devices including solar cells andIII-V/Si photonics.4Fellow, The Optical Society, 20134Fellow, IEEE, 20084Fellow, DoD National Security Science and Engi-

neering Faculty Fellow, 2008

Tatsuo ItohDistinguished ProfessorNorthrop Grumman Professor in Microwave ElectronicsPh.D., University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, 1969

Physical and Wave ElectronicsMicrowave and millimeter wave electronics, guided wave structures, low power wireless electronics, integrated passive components and antennas.4National Academy of Engineering, 20034Fellow, IEEE, 1982

Bahram JalaliProfessor Northrop Grumman Endowed Opto-Electronic Chair in Electrical Engineering Ph.D., Columbia University, 1989

Physical and Wave ElectronicsSilicon photonics, biophotonics, real-time instrumentsfor biomedical and communication applications.4R.W. Wood Prize, The Optical Society, 20084Fellow, The Optical Society, 2004 4Fellow, IEEE, 2003

Mona JarrahiAssociate Professor Ph.D., Stanford University, 2007

Physical and Wave ElectronicsTerahertz optoelectronic devices and systems, microwavephotonics, and ultrafast electro-optics.4IEEE Nanotechnology Council Early Career Award

in Nanotechnology, 20144IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Outstand-

ing Young Engineer Award, 20144Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and

Engineers, 2013


The Faculty

Chandrashekar J. JoshiDistinguished ProfessorPh.D., Hull University, England, 1979

Physical and Wave ElectronicsLaser fusion, laser acceleration of particles, nonlinear optics, high-power lasers, plasma physics.4National Academy of Engineering, 20144James Clerk Maxwell Prize (APS), 20064Fellow, IEEE, 1993

William J. KaiserProfessorPh.D., Wayne State University, 1984

Circuits and Embedded SystemsDevelopment of networked embedded computing for linking the Internet to the physical world. Distributedand wearable systems for advancing the quality and international accessibility of healthcare through Wireless Health.4Co-Director, UCLA Wireless Health Institute since 20084UCLA Gold Shield Faculty Prize, 20094Brian P. Copenhaver Award, 2005

Alan J. LaubDistinguished ProfessorPh.D., University of Minnesota, 1974

Signals and SystemsNumerical linear algebra, numerical analysis, high-end scientific computation, and computer-aided control system design, especially algorithms for control and filtering.4Life Fellow, IEEE, 19864Third Millennium Medal, IEEE, 20004Control Systems Technology Award, 1993

Kuo-Nan LiouDistinguished ProfessorPh.D. New York University, 1970

Physical and Wave ElectronicsElectromagnetic scattering by ice crystals and aerosols, satellite remote sensing, radiative transfer, and climate modeling.

4Roger Revelle Medal, American Geophysical Union,2013

4Quadrennial Gold Medal, International RadiationCommission, 2012

4National Academy of Engineering, 1999

Jia-Ming LiuProfessorPh.D., Harvard University, 1982

Physical and Wave ElectronicsNonlinear optics, ultrafast optics, semiconductor lasers,photonic devices, nonlinear laser dynamics, photonic mi-crowaves, graphene photonics, topological insulators,nanophotonic imaging, and biomedical photonics.4Fellow, IEEE, 2008 4Guggenheim Fellow, 2006 4Fellow, American Physical Society, 2003

Wentai LiuDistinguished ProfessorPh.D., University of Michigan, 1983

Physical and Wave ElectronicsNeural prosthesis for central/spinal cord/visceral nerv-ous systems, bioelectronics sensor/actuator, bio-signalprocessing, brain-machine interface, personalized learn-ing, wireless/wired transceiver, computer vision andimage processing, timing/clock optimization4National Chiao-Tung University (Taiwan) Honorary

Doctorate Degree Award, 20134NSF Inventor of the first FDA approved Retinal

Prosthesis, 2013 4Alcoa Foundations Distinguished Research

Achievement Award, 2000

Dejan MarkovicAssociate ProfessorPh.D., University of California, Berkeley, 2006

Circuits and Embedded SystemsPower/area-efficient digital integrated circuits for communication and healthcare applications, design withpost-CMOS devices, design optimization methods and supporting CAD flows.4NSF CAREER Award, 20094David J. Sakrison Memorial Prize, UC Berkeley,

2007

Liou J.M. LiuJoshi Kaiser Laub W. Liu Markovic


The Faculty

Warren MoriProfessorPh.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 1987

Physical and Wave ElectronicsAdvanced accelerator concepts, advanced light sources, inertial confinement fusion, nonlinear optics of plasmas,plasma physics, and massively parallel computing.4Fellow, IEEE, 2007 4Fellow, American Physical Society, 1995

Stanley J. OsherProfessorPh.D., Courant Institute, New York University, 1966

Signals and SystemsInnovative numerical methods for applications rangingfrom image science to control to electromagnetics to computational physics and beyond.4Carl Friedrich Gauss Prize, 20144Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 20104National Academy of Sciences, 2005

Thomas OtisProfessorPh.D., Stanford University, 1994

Signals and SystemsCellular and molecular aspects of neural signaling4Associate Editor, Journal of Neurophysiology, 2011-

20144McKnight Technology Award, 20094Fellow, Centre National de la Recherche Scien-

tifique, 2007,

Aydogan OzcanChancellor's Professor and HHMI ProfessorPh.D., Stanford University, 2005

Physical and Wave ElectronicsPhotonics and its applications to nano and biotechnology.4Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and

Engineers Award, 2012 4NSF CAREER Award, 20104NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, 2009

Sudhakar PamartiAssociate ProfessorPh.D., University of California, San Diego, 2003

Circuits and Embedded SystemsMixed-signal IC design: wireless / wireline communi-cation applications, digitally-assisted analog / RF circuitdesign, delta-sigma modulation, quantization noise the-ory.4NSF CAREER Award, 2010

Gregory J. PottieProfessor Ph.D., McMaster University, Canada, 1988

Signals and SystemsWireless communications, modeling and reliable inference in sensor networks with application to wirelesshealth.4Fulbright Senior Scholar, 2009 4Fellow, IEEE, 20054Allied Signal Award for Outstanding Faculty

Researcher in HSSEAS, 1998

Yahya Rahmat-SamiiDistinguished ProfessorNorthrop Grumman Professor of Electrical Engineering/ElectromagneticsPh.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1975

Physical and Wave ElectronicsPersonal communications, medical, miniaturized, fractal,reflectors, remote sensing, satellite and radio astronomyantennas; electromagnetic band gap, meta-materials, reflectarrays and frequency selective structures, compu-tational and optimization techniques, modern antennameasurements and diagnostics.4UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award, 20114IEEE Electromagnetics Award, 20114National Academy of Engineering, 2008

Pamarti Pottie Rahmat-SamiiMori Osher OzcanOtis


The Faculty

Behzad RazaviProfessorPh.D., Stanford University, 1992

Circuits and Embedded SystemsAnalog, RF, and mixed-signal integrated circuit design, dual-standard RF transceivers, phase-locked systems and frequency synthesizers, A/D and D/A converters, high-speed data communication circuits.4IEEE VLSI Circuits Symposium Best Student

Paper Award, 20124IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference Best

Invited Paper Award, 2012 4IEEE Donald O.Pederson Award in Solid-State

Circuits, 2012

Vwani P. RoychowdhuryProfessorPh.D., Stanford University, 1989

Signals and SystemsInternet-scale information processing; data mining andmachine learning; complex networks; quantum and bio-inspired computation; nonlinear systems; physics ofcomputation; complexity theory and cryptography;adaptive systems.

Izhak RubinDistinguished Professor and Area DirectorPh.D., Princeton University, 1970

Signals and SystemsTelecommunications and computer communicationssystems and networks; public safety networks; mobilecellular and ad hoc wireless networks; vehicular networks; heterogeneous networks; optical nets; satellitenetworks; queueing systems; C4ISR systems and networks; network simulations, analysis and design; traf-fic modeling/engineering.4Life Fellow, IEEE, 1987

Henry SamueliProfessorPh.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 1980

Circuits and Embedded SystemsDigital signal processing, communications systems

engineering, and CMOS integrated circuit design for applications in high-speed data transmission systems.4 Marconi Society Prize and Fellowship, 20124 Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 20044 National Academy of Engineering, 2003

Majid SarrafzadehProfessorPh.D., University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, 1987

Circuits and Embedded SystemsEmbedded and reconfigurable computing; health analytics; design and analysis of algorithms.4Co-Director, UCLA Wireless Health Institute,

since 20084Co-Founder, four Startups, since 20004Fellow, IEEE, 1996Ali H. SayedProfessor Ph.D., Stanford University, 1992

Signals and SystemsAdaptation and learning, network science, information- processing theories, distributed processing, biologically- inspired designs.4Athanasios Papoulis Award, 20144 Technical Achievement Award, IEEE Signal

Processing Society, 20124Frederick E. Terman Award, 2005

Stefano SoattoProfessorPh.D., California Institute of Technology, 1996

Signals and SystemsEstimation theory, control theory, video, image and signal processing, computer vision, robotics.4Fellow, IEEE, 20134Okawa Foundation Research Grant Award, 2001 4David Marr Prize, 1999

Samueli SarrafzadehRazavi Roychowdhury Rubin Sayed Soatto


The Faculty

Jason L. SpeyerRonald and Valerie Sugar Distinguished Professor in EngineeringPh.D., Harvard University, 1968

Signals and SystemsStochastic and deterministic optimal control and estimation with application to aerospace systems; guidance, flight control, and flight mechanics.4National Academy of Engineering, 20054Life Fellow, IEEE, 2005 4Fellow, American Institute of Aeronautics and

Astronautics, 1985

Mani B. SrivastavaProfessor Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1992


Embedded and cyber-physical systems; distributed and participatory sensing; mobile, wearable, and pervasive computing; wireless networks; power & energy-aware systems; energy harvesting technologies; applications inmHealth, green buildings, and smart grids.4Fellow, IEEE, 20084Okawa Foundation Research Award Grant, 19984NSF CAREER Award, 1997

Oscar M. StafsuddProfessor and Vice ChairPh.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 1967

Physical and Wave ElectronicsMid-infrared lasers for applications in materials processing, dentistry, and surgery; ceramic laser mediafor high power laser systems; Raman imaging and timedependent fluorescent imaging for medical applications(cancer/ wounds); infrared detectors.4HSSEAS Lockheed Martin Excellence in Teaching

Award, 20114Fulbright Fellowship, 1986

Dwight C. StreitDistinguished Professor Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 1986

Physical and Wave ElectronicsSolid-state electronics, millimeter-wave devices and circuits, electronic materials, heterogeneous integration.4National Research Council Lifetime Associate, 20084Northrop Grumman Distinguished Innovator, 20084National Academy of Engineering, 2001

Paulo TabuadaProfessor and Vice ChairPh.D., Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal, 2002

Signals and SystemsModeling, analysis, and control of cyber-physical systems. Control and systems theory.4George S. Axelby Oustanding Paper Award, 20114Donald P. Eckman Award, 20094NSF Career Award, 2005

King-Ning TuDistinguished ProfessorPh. D., Harvard University 1968

Physical and Wave ElectronicsVLSI processing and reliability, and 3D IC packaging technology.4TMS John Bardeen Award, 20134Fellow: American Physical Society, 1981, The

Metallurgical Society, 1988, Materials Research Society, 2010

4Humboldt Award,1996

Lieven Vandenberghe Professor Ph.D., Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, 1992

Signals and SystemsOptimization, systems and control theory, signal processing.4HSSEAS TRW Excellence in Teaching Award,

20024NSF CAREER Award, 19984Robert Stock Award, K.U. Leuven, 1993

Streit Tabuada TuSpeyer Srivastava Stafsudd Vandenberghe


The Faculty

Mihaela van der SchaarChancellor’s ProfessorPh.D., University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 2001

Signals and SystemsEngineering economics and game theory, multi-agentlearning, online learning, decision theory, network science, multi-user networking, big data and real-timestream mining, multimedia.4Fellow, IEEE, 20104Editor in Chief, IEEE Transactions on Multimedia,

2011-20134NSF CAREER Award, 2004

John D. VillasenorProfessorPh.D., Stanford University, 1989

Signals and SystemsCybersecurity, wireless mobile devices and systems, cloudcomputing, digital currencies and emerging paymentmethods, supply chain and infrastructure security, digitalprivacy, medical imaging, intellectual property.

Kang L. WangDistinguished ProfessorRaytheon Company Professor of Electrical EngineeringPh.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1970

Physical and Wave ElectronicsNanoelectronics, spintronics and nanomagnetics; inter-acting complex nanoscale systems; nanoscale science, devices and quantum systems; nonvolatile electronicsand low dissipation devices; MBE; optoelectronics andsolar cells.4Semiconductor Industry Association Award, 20094Semiconductor Research Corporation Technical

Excellence Award, 19954Fellow, IEEE, 1992

Yuanxun Ethan WangAssociate ProfessorPh.D., University of Texas at Austin, 1999

Physical and Wave ElectronicsHigh performance antenna array and microwave amplifier systems for wireless communication and radar;numerical modeling techniques; fusion of signal process-ing and circuit techniques in microwave system design.

Richard D. WeselProfessor and Associate DeanPh.D., Stanford University, 1996

Signals and SystemsCommunication theory, information theory, and chan-nel coding, feedback communication systems, informa-tion storage systems including coding for Flash memorysystems, binary and non-binary low-density paritycheck codes, turbo codes, coded modulation systems,cooperative data exchange, and network optimization.4HSSEAS TRW Excellence in Teaching Award, 20004Okawa Foundation Research Grant Award, 19994NSF CAREER Award, 1998

Benjamin S. WilliamsAssociate Professor and Area DirectorPh.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003

Physical and Wave ElectronicsTerahertz and mid-infrared lasers and devices; low- dimensional semiconductor nanostructures for -opto-electronics; sub- wavelength photonics, plasmonics,and meta-materials.4NSF CAREER Award, 20124DARPA Young Faculty Award, 2008

Chee Wei WongAssociate Professor Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003

Physical and Wave ElectronicsUltrafast, nonlinear, quantum and precision opticalmeasurements in mesoscopic and nanoscale systems.Microwave photonics, silicon nanophotonics, ultrafastand low-temperature spectroscopy, low-dimensional materials, high-dimensional quantum entanglement,cavity quantum electrodynamics, ultrahigh-Q oscillatorsand stabilization, precision sensing, and electronic- photonic integration. 4Fellow, The Optical Society, 20134NSF CAREER Award, 20084DARPA Young Faculty Award, 2007

Wessel WilliamsVillasenorvan der Schaar K. L. Wang Y. E. Wang Wong

29

The Faculty

Jason C. S. WooProfessor and Vice ChairPh.D., Stanford University, 1987

Physical and Wave ElectronicsSolid state technology, CMOS and bipolar device/ circuit optimization, novel device design, modeling of integrated circuits, VLSI fabrication. 4Fellow, IEEE, 2005

C.-K. Ken YangProfessor and Area DirectorPh.D., Stanford University, 1998

Circuits and Embedded SystemsHigh-speed data and clock recovery circuits for largedigital systems, low-power, high-performance functionalblocks and clock distribution for high-speed digital pro-cessing, and low-power high-precision capacitive sensinginterface for MEMS.4Fellow, IEEE, 20114IBM Faculty Development Fellowship, 2003-20054Northrop Grumman Outstanding Teaching Award, 2003

Kung YaoDistinguished ProfessorPh.D., Princeton University, 1965

Signals and SystemsCommunication theory, signal, acoustic, and array processing, wireless communication systems, sensor networks, chaos system theory, simulation, and VLSIand systolic algorithms and architectures.4Journal of Communications and Networks, Best

Paper Award, 2011 4IEEE Joint Information Theory/Communication

Theory Societies Best Paper Award, 20084Life Fellow, IEEE, 1994

Lixia ZhangProfessor Jonathan B. Postel Chair in Computer SciencePh.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1989

Circuits and Embedded SystemsInternet architecture design, large scale distributed systems, network security and resilience.4IEEE Internet Award, 20094Fellow, Association for Computing Machinery, 20064Fellow, IEEE, 2006

Woo Yang ZhangYao

Numerous textbooks for graduate and undergraduate instruction areauthored by our electrical engineering faculty. New Books by Faculty


A. Sayed S. OsherJ. Speyer S. Soatto

J. Cong D. MarkovicA. Ozcan K. -N. Tu

The UCLA IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) is one of the largest engineering-focusedclubs at UCLA. In addition to our corporate infoses-

sions, workshops, and events aimed to help students incareer building and professionalism, UCLA IEEE isknown for the challenging, educational, but still fun proj-ects that allow students to get a true hands-on experi-ence in electrical engineering that classroom lectures donot offer.

The OPS (Open Project Space) program is geared towardsfirst and second-year students, aimed at teaching thefundamentals of hands-on electrical engineering. Ourcomputer science-focused analogy, C3 (Code, Create, Com-pete), allows computer science majors to join in on thefun with their own customized projects. For more ad-vanced students who want a challenging robotics expe-rience, the Micromouse and Natcar projects are perfectchoices to build something crazy. Outside of these struc-tured programs, students are also free to innovate andimagine up independent projects, which IEEE sponsorsand helps to create.

The UCLA IEEE club is located on the second floorof Boelter Hall with its own lab space in the StudentCreativity Center. The lab currently has a 3D printer anda mini-CNC mill that students can use for a small fee.Our lab is stocked with parts for anybody to use, whetherthey are part of the electrical engineering, computer science, or any other major. Come check us out at Boelter2730D!

http://ieee.ucla.edu or [email protected]

2013-2014 honors awarded to UCLA IEEE:4Region 6 Exemplary Student Branch Award4Region 6 Outstanding Large Student Branch 4Region 6 Micromouse Competition, First Place4Region 6 Micromouse Competition, Second Place4Region 6 Micromouse Competition, Third Place4All America Micromouse Competition, Second

Place4All America Micromouse Competition, Third Place4UCSD Natcar Competition, Third Place4UCLA Natcar Competition, First Place4UCLA Natcar Competition, Second Place4IEEE Student Professional Awareness Venture

(S-PAVe)4IEEE Global Website Competition, Fourth Place

UCLA IEEE Club Members ExperienceHands-On Robotics


Club

s

Hands-On Robotics: Natcar (top) and Micromouse (bottom) are

projects in which UCLA IEEE club members can participate


HKN Celebrates 30th Year at UCLA and Honors Professor Alan Willson, Jr.

Eta Kappa Nu (HKN) is a unique organization ded-icated to encouraging and recognizing excellence inthe electrical and computer engineering fields.

Through a variety of service programs and leadershiptraining, student members develop lifelong skills thatearmark them for prominentpositions in industry and aca-demia. In order to be eligiblefor membership, studentsmust be either in the topfourth of their junior standingclass or top third of their sen-ior standing class. For UCLA’sHKN Iota Gamma chapter,the 2013-2014 academic yearwas a year to celebrate legacyand inspire growth. For its30th year at UCLA, HKNchose to grow even further inmembership, service, and in-dustry connection.

In Fall 2013, HKN wel-comed Professor BenjaminWilliams as its newest facultyadvisor. With his wise guid-ance, the chapter’s PresidentDuymong Nguyen and stu-dent officer board inducted atotal of 69 students and onefaculty member during theyear, bringing the total chaptermembership to 206. The chap-ter attributes this success tothe student officers who con-tinue to go above and beyondin serving the community.

In Winter 2014, HKNlaunched its first annualEmerge Career Fair, the firston-campus career fair atUCLA to focus solely on up-and-coming industry in theelectrical and computer engi-neering fields. External VicePresident Priscilla Lok spear-headed the event, recruitingtwelve innovative companies

to scout UCLA talent. Over 200 students attended,and the fair alone raised over US$3,000 for the chap-ter to continue providing free student services.

To round off an amazing year, HKN held a banquetto celebrate the chapter’s 30 years of success. The oc-

casion provided an opportunityto present the 2014 HKN Dis-tinguished Service Award toProfessor Alan Willson, found-ing faculty advisor for the IotaGamma Chapter and memberof Eta Kappa Nu for 55 years.Professor Willson is a Distin-guished Professor Emeritusand the Charles P. ReamesChair in Electrical Engineer-ing at UCLA. The award waspresented to Professor Willsonby Professor S.K. Ramesh,Dean, College of Engineeringand Computer Science, Cali-fornia State University, North-ridge, and member of theIEEE-HKN Board of Direc-tors.

In addition, the chapter wasrecognized for its eighth Out-standing Chapter Award in arow for 2012-2013. TammyChang, former HKN studentofficer, was also recognized asthe recipient of the 2014 AltonB. Zerby and Carl T. KoernerOutstanding Student Award.

For the next year, HKN plansto expand its tutoring and proj-ect services in UCLA’s newlyremodeled Student CreativityCenter to further reach thebroader UCLA Engineeringcommunity. The chapter thanksProfessor Williams, ProfessorM. –C. Frank Chang, alumniadvisor Dr. William Goodin,and IEEE branch advisor Dr.Mike Briggs for their contin-ued support.

31

Clubs

Professor Willson receives award for 55 years ofservice (top) and the Emerge Career Fair (bottom), which focused on electrical and computer engineering


The De

partm

net The Electrical Engineering Department Overview

Recognitions

Society Fellows 47NAE Members 13NAS Members 3National Medal of Science 1National Academy of Inventors 2Marconi Prize 1

Faculty and Staff

Ladder Faculty 45 FTEsCourtesy Appointments 12Emeriti Faculty 13Adjunct 10Lecturers 10Staff 44

Research FacilitiesLaboratories and Research Groups: 40Space: 100,772 square feet

Research Funding for 2013-2014

Total $25,848,180

Research Centers

The Electrical Engineering Department contributes to the following Research Centers:

California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI)Center for Development of Emerging Data Storage

Systems (CoDES2)Center for Engineering Economics, Learning

& NetworksCenter for Excellence in Green NanotechnologyCenter for High Frequency Electronics (CHFE)Center for Systems, Dynamics and Controls

(SyDyC)Center for Translational Applications of NanoscaleMultiferroic Systems (TANMS) Expedition into Hardware Variability-Aware SoftwareFunction Accelerated nanoMaterial Engineering

(FAME)Functional Engineered Nano Architectonics Focus

Center (FENA)

Impact +Institute for Cell Mimetic Space Exploration

(CMISE)Institute for Digital Research and Education

(IDRE)Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics

(IPAM)Institute for Technology Advancement (ITA)Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science

and Engineering ( JIFRESSE)Nanoelectronics Research Center (NRC)Public Safety Network System (PSNS)Water Technology Research Center (WaTer)World Institute of Nanotechnology (WIN)Wireless Health Institute

State$100,014

University &Endowments$1,594,644

Industry$8,382,568

Federal$15,770,954


The Department

Admitted

135

Rejected299

Admitted

157

Rejected610

Graduate Applicants for Fall 2014 Graduate Student Fellowships (in US$)

Department Fellowships 793,172 Non-resident Tuition for Teaching Assistants 327,210 Qualcomm Fellowship 282,892 Dissertation Year Fellowship 107,124 NRT matching funds 105,714 Dean's GSR Support 97,517 Faculty Unrestricted Fellowships 69,657 Samueli Fellowship 65,413 Broadcom Fellowship 56,940 IGERT Fellowship 56,940 Eugene Cota Robles Fellowship 51,510 Graduate Opportunity Fellowship 48,390 Sandia Excellence in Science &

Technology Fellowship 39,418 Ph.D. Preliminary Exam Top Score

Fellowships 38,836 Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Research Fellowship 37,637 Dean’s Fellowship & Camp Funds 29,000 IBM Fellowship 25,413 Guru Krupa Fellowship 17,000 Dr. Ursula Mandel 15,000 Raytheon Fellowship 11,968 Northrop Grumman Fellowship 3,314 Intel Fellowship 3,314 Malcolm Stacey Memorial Fellowship 3,132 Conference Travel 2,630 Total $2,289,141

Degrees Conferred in 2013-2014

Graduate Students

Students Enrolled 508Applicants 2015Admitted 405New Students Enrolled 179Median Incoming GPA 3.77

Undergraduate Students

Students Enrolled 682Applicants 1735Admitted 430New Students Enrolled 141Average Incoming GPA 4.467 (weighted)

3.924 (unweighted)

Total 405 Admitted

Physical & Wave Electronics

Signals & Systems

B. S. (150) Ph.D. (39)

Graduate Students Admitted

Other171

Taiwan 115

South Korea 64

Iran91

India394

United States229

China951

Admitted

113

Rejected695

Circuits & Embedded Systems

10

82

3127

10

54

40

71

914

106

Sum

mer

2013

Fall

2013

Win

ter 2

014

Sprin

g 20

14

M. S. (175)

Total 2015


Indu

stry Affiliates

The Electrical Engineering Department is dedicated to initiating and forging partner-ships with industry, in which both the school and the companies involved benefit from

the exchange of technology innovations and talent. The Industrial Affiliates Program(IAP), initiated in 1981, provides a variety of services that include:

4 Nurturing the talent pipeline between UCLA and IAP members4 Providing access to UCLA intellectual capital4 Exploring collaborative research opportunities4 Providing access to state-of-the-art research facilities4 Enhancing industry visibility on campus

The department also serves as an invaluable consulting resource to our affiliate members.In turn, a company’s participation in IAP provides essential program enhancement and aidto students with a portion of the membership fees being applied towards laboratory, instructional and other equipment needs. More details are available at the IAP website:

http://www.ee.ucla.edu/people/industry

Our Thanks to Affiliate Members for their Support

Industrial Affiliates Program


Annual Report

Administration

M. -C. Frank Chang, Department ChairmanOscar M. Stafsudd, Vice-Chair, Undergraduate AffairsPaulo Tabuada, Vice-Chair, Graduate AffairsJason C. S. Woo, Vice-Chair, Industry Relations

ABET Committee

M. -C. Frank Chang, Department ChairmanAsad Madni, Alumni Advisory Board ChairOscar M. Stafsudd, Professor and Vice-Chair,

Undergraduate AffairsJason C. S. Woo, Professor and Vice-Chair,

Industry Relations

Area Directors

C.-K. Ken Yang, Director, Circuits and Embedded Systems

Benjamin Williams, Director, Physical and Wave Electronics

Izhak Rubin, Director, Signals and Systems

Centers Directors and Committees Chairs

Yuanxun Ethan Wang, Director, Center for High-Frequency Electronics

Robert N Candler, Director, Nano-Electronics ResearchFacility

William J. Kaiser, Chair, Tenure CommitteeSuhas Diggavi, Chair, Recruitment CommitteeAsad A. Abidi, Chair, Non-Tenure CommitteeChandrashekar J. Joshi, Chair, Courses and Curriculum

Committee

Annual Report 2013-2014

Editors/CoordinatorsM.-C. Frank Chang, Professor & ChairmanJacquelyn T. Trang, Chief Administrative Officer

WritersProfessor Robert N. CandlerProfessor Suhas DiggaviAdjunct Professor Dariush DivsalarProfessor Diana HuffakerProfessor Tatsuo ItohProfessor Bahram JalaliProfessor Mona JarrahiProfessor Dejan MarkovicProfessor Stanley J. OsherProfessor Aydogan OzcanProfessor Yahya Rahmat-Samii Professor Ali H. SayedProfessor Oscar M. StafsuddProfessor John D. Villasenor

William Kisliuk, UCLA Engineering Director of Marketing

Matthew Chin, UCLA Engineering CommunicationsManager

Stuart Wolpert, UCLA Media Relations and Public Outreach Senior Media Relations Representative

Janet C. Lin, Electrical Engineering Staff

DesignMauricio Feldman-Abe, Principal DesignerTeresanne Cossetta Russell, Designer

Special Thanks toDeeona Columbia, Manager, Office of Graduate

Student AffairsIlhee Choi, Manager, Office of Human Resources

Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied ScienceElectrical Engineering DepartmentUniversity of CaliforniaLos Angeles, CA 90095www.ee.ucla.edu

ucla ee annual report 2013-2014

Documents