Mr. Singh came to Georgia Tech and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) in fall 2008 from New Delhi, India and is a member of the Georgia Tech Honors Program. He has been actively involved with a number of campus organizations, including Emerging Leaders, NSCS, President's Council Governing Board, SGA Planning and Development Committee, and was recently elected the membership chair of Tau Beta Pi. For his involvement and academic performance, he was awarded the Omicron Delta Kappa Freshman Leadership Award in his first year at Georgia Tech. Mr. Singh has also served as a teaching assistant in the College of Computing since his freshman semester and as Team Leader for GT1000. He has also received the Faculty Honors distinction every semester at Georgia Tech.

Currently co-oping at ABB Ventyx as a software developer, Mr. Singh plans to graduate in fall 2012 and pursue a master's degree in ECE.

Dr. Meisel will spend four weeks this spring at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. His fellowship will support his work in the area of plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle powertrains. During his stay, which is scheduled for April 28-May 30, he will also present seminars at Imperial College in London, Cranfield University in Cranfield-Bedfordshire, and at Lotus Engineering in Hethel-Norwich.

The purpose of the Royal Academy of Engineering Distinguished Visiting Fellowship program is to enable and strengthen international relations and networking in key areas of engineering higher education.

The team won the award for their paper entitled "Ally: OS-Transparent Packet Inspection Using Sequestered Cores." “Ally” performs packet processing services (e.g., deep packet inspection) using sequestered, privileged processing cores of a multi-core system. This research is an extension of the team's earlier work–“introspective computing”–sponsored by the NSF CAREER program. Ally enables distributed deployment of compute-intensive management services throughout a datacenter. It uniquely allows these services to be deployed independent of the arbitrary OS and/or hypervisor that users may choose to run on the remaining cores, with strong hardware isolation preventing the host from tampering with the management environment. As more and more computing services are being shifted to the cloud, systems such as Ally will enable rich network services using highly programmable multi-core processors and solidify the availability, reliability, and security of datacenter operations.

The following ECE students were honored at this event; fellowship names and student advisors are also listed.

Jordan Greenlee, ARCS Fellowship and NDSEG Fellowship, Advisor: W. Alan Doolittle

Urenna Onyewuchi, Corning Fellowship, Advisor: Emmanouil M. Tentzeris

Abner Ayala Acevedo; GEM Fellowship, Goizueta Fellowship, and President's Fellowship; Advisor: Bonnie Heck Ferri

Yancy Jose Diaz-Mercado, GEM Fellowship, Advisor: Bonnie Heck Ferri

Carlos Solis, GEM Fellowship, Advisor: Gabriel Rincon-Mora

Ivan Walker, GEM Fellowship

Shaloo Rakheja, Intel Fellowship, Advisor: Azad Naeemi

Hyung Suk Yang, Intel Fellowship, Advisors: Muhannad Bakir and James D. Meindl

Trang Thai, Microsoft Research Ph.D. Fellowship, Advisor: James D. Meindl

Chris Coen, NASA Space Tech Research Fellowship, Advisor: John D. Cressler

Jessica Falcone, NSF Fellowship, Advisor: Pamela T. Bhatti

George Barisich, President's Fellowship, Advisor: Paul G. Steffes

Chia-Chen Chou, President's Fellowship, Advisor: Bonnie Heck Ferri

Michelle Collins, President's Fellowship, Advisor: Bonnie Heck-Ferri

Daniel Dykes, President's Fellowship, Advisor: Bonnie Heck-Ferri

Margaret Garvan, President's Fellowship, Advisor: Bonnie Heck-Ferri

Michael Giardino, President's Fellowship, Advisor: Bonnie Heck-Ferri

David Jensen, President's Fellowship, Advisor: Bonnie Heck-Ferri

Alexander Melhorn, President's Fellowship, Advisor: Bonnie Heck-Ferri

Colin Pardue, President's Fellowship, Advisor: Bonnie Heck-Ferri

Stephanie Parker, President's Fellowship, Advisor: Bonnie Heck-Ferri

Stephanie Rosenthal, President's Fellowship, Advisor: Bonnie Heck-Ferri

Clifton Thomas, President's Fellowship, Advisor: Bonnie Heck-Ferri

James Thomas, President's Fellowship, Advisor: Bonnie Heck-Ferri

William Wahby, President's Fellowship, Advisor: Bonnie Heck-Ferri

Leilei Xiong, President's Fellowship, Advisor: Bonnie Heck-Ferri

Greg Droge, SMART Fellowship, Advisor: Magnus Egerstedt

In his 13 years since joining the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, Dr. Hasler has graduated 21 Ph.D. students from his program. In the past four years alone, he has graduated 15 Ph.D. students. No signs of a slowdown are apparent, as Dr. Hasler is currently supervising 11 Ph.D. students and co-advising four additional Ph.D. students.

Dr. Hasler has published over 200 refereed journal and conference papers with his students, and many have won awards at top electronics conferences. Ten of his Ph.D. students are named as co-inventors on U.S. patents that are based on their Ph.D. research.

"Paul's commitment to excellence in advising and preparing Ph.D. students has been a tremendous asset to ECE and Georgia Tech," said Gary S. May, Steve W. Chaddick School Chair and Professor. "Graduates of his research group have continued on to start their own successful businesses and have thriving careers in academia and with high-tech companies. They are making their marks in the technical world and will keep on doing so in the years to come, thanks to the preparation and training that they received from both Paul and from Georgia Tech."

The IEEE grade of Fellow isconferred by the board of directors upon a person with an extraordinary recordof accomplishments in any IEEE field of interest.

The ECE faculty members and their citations are:

Magnus Egerstedt, professsor specializing in systems and controls, "for contributions to hybrid and networked control, with applications in robotics."

Mark Richards, principal research engineer specializing in digital signal processing, "for contributions in radar signal processing education."

Erik Verriest, professor specializing in systems and controls, "for contributions to delay systems and modeling time varying and nonlinear systems."

Guotong Zhou, professor specializing in digital signal processing and bioengineering, "for contributions to the analysis of nonlinear signals and systems."

Yucel Altunbasak, adjunct professor who became the president of TUBITAK in Turkey earlier this fall, "for contributions to super-resolution imaging, color filter array interpolation, and error-resilient video communications."

Two more faculty members with Georgia Tech connections were also elected as IEEE Fellows. They include:

Irfan Essa, professor in the School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing, "for contributions to computer vision and graphics."

Yogendra Joshi, professor in the George W. Woodruff School in Mechanical Engineering, "for contributions to microfabricated cooling devices." Dr. Joshi also holds a joint faculty appointment in ECE.

Known for his great enthusiasm and passion for his students and loveof learning, Dr. Wills joined the faculty of the School of Electrical andComputer Engineering (ECE) at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1991. Hetaught in the area of computer engineering, including the introduction to computerengineering course and courses in mechanisms for computing systems, computerarchitecture, and embedded video surveillance.

A very popular, award-winning teacher, Dr. Wills taught almost 2,900students in 83 classes. Most recently, in 2009, he was honored with the GeorgiaTech Outstanding Innovative Use of Education Technology Award, which hereceived with his wife and collaborator, Linda Wills, and the School of ECE Richard M. Bass/Eta Kappa Nu OutstandingTeacher Award, which is determined by a majority vote of the ECE senior class.

Dr. Wills’ research interests were in the areas of embedded surveillancesystems, portable image processing architectures, and supercomputerinterconnection networks. He and Dr. Linda Wills co-led the Mobile Vision Embedded Systems(MOVES) research group. During his career, Dr. Wills graduated 23 Ph.D.students and seven master’s students and supervised over 24 undergraduateresearchers. One-third of his doctoral students are in university positions andtwo-thirds have joined leading electronics companies, including Intel,Motorola, Qualcomm, Samsung, and Sarnoff Corporation.

A passionate advocate for engineering education, Dr. Wills was aleader in defining the new computer engineering curriculum within the School ofECE. He was also a leader in education on the Institute level, serving on theInstitute Undergraduate Curriculum Committee from 1999-2005 and as its chairfor two years, 2003-2005, and he served on the Institute Graduate CurriculumCommittee, 2005-2007. He also served on the Joint College of Computing/Collegeof Engineering committees that formed the Computational Science and EngineeringProgram and the Software Engineering certificate.

One of Dr. Wills’ students once said of him, “I don’t know of anyother person who has better infused in students the passion for the subject thathe or she possesses.” Dr. Wills’ personal concern for students and hisunselfish efforts to creating classes with appropriate, innovative uses ofmodern IT have been inspirational to students and faculty alike.

MemorialService Information

Funeralservices for Scott Wills will be held on Monday, December 5 and also onTuesday, December 6. On December 5, the service will be held at 3 p.m. atDuluth First United Methodist, 3208 Duluth Highway 120, Duluth 30096. Churchinformation and directions are also available at http://www.duluthumc.org/ and directions http://www.duluthumc.org/home.aspx?igid=50652

On December 6, a funeral Mass will be held at 11 a.m. at the Catholic Churchof Saint Monica, 1700 Buford Highway, Duluth. The family will receive guestsafter the Mass in the church hall. Church information and directions are alsoavailable at http://www.saintmonicas.com/and http://www.saintmonicas.com/Parish%20Info/Directions.htm

Donations may be sent to AIM at Melanoma, 3217 Bob O Link Court, Plano, TX75093.

The family will receive friends on Sunday December 4 from 4-7 p.m. at Bill HeadFuneral Homes & Crematory, Inc at 3088 Highway 120, Duluth, GA. Directionsmay also be found at http://www.billheadfuneralhome.com/page6.htmland click on Duluth chapel option.

Scott meant a great deal to all of us, and he, his contributions, and hispresence will be missed very, very much. Please continue to show your supportfor his wife, Linda, and her family and keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

The award winning paper entitled, "Sensing Resolution and Measurement Range of a Passive Wireless Strain Sensor," was written by ECE Professor Emmanouil M. (Manos) Tentzeris,  his current Ph.D. student James Cooper, his former Ph.D. student Terence Wu who now works at DirecTV, CEE Ph.D. students Chunhee Cho and Xiaohua Yi who are both co-advised by Dr. Tentzeris, visiting M.S.C.E. student Gabriel Lantz, CEE Assistant Professor Yang Wang, and CEE Professor Roberto Leon.

The team's paper introduces a new generation of inkjet-printed wireless passive strain sensors. This technology could find numerous applications in conformal wireless "smart skins" by monitoring the structural health of bridges, large buildings, and aircraft and by allowing for a 24/7 evaluation of structural integrity in a completely passive/zero-power way. This approach could have tremendous impact in the prevention of structure collapses, detection and early prevention of cracks, and status evaluations of  earthquake- or hurricane-struck areas.

The IEEE BCTM, held at Georgia Tech on Sunday-Tuesday, October 9-11, celebrated its 25th anniversary this year, and is the premier international forum for the presentation of advances in bipolar technology, devices, and circuits. Mr. Saha's paper, entitled "An Adaptive, Wideband SiGe Image Reject Mixer for a Self-Healing Receiver," exploited novel circuit design tricks to enable the SiGe mixer (and ultimately the entire microwave receiver chain) to autonomously correct for undesirable process-induced or environmentally-induced changes to RF performance, thereby significantly improving IC yield and robustness.

Ms. Hsueh has published more than 30 papers in prestigious journals and conference proceedings, and she was first author for 14 papers. She also won the Bor-Uei Chen Outstanding Memorial Scholarship, sponsored by the Photonics Society of Chinese-Americans, for outstanding accomplishments in graduate study in 2009. As the second Ph.D. student from ECE Professor Gee-Kung Chang's research group to receive the IEEE Photonics Society Graduate Student Fellowship Award, Yu-Ting is doing her Ph.D. thesis research on radio over fiber and 100G optical transport systems. Her work has generated profound impacts in converged optical and wireless access networks that can provide both the conventional and future-proof multi-gigabit/s wireless services over fiber and air space in a single system platform.

The First Vice President, as a member of the Executive Committee and the Board of Governors, sets the direction and determines the strategy for the IEEE Computer Society, which is the largest of the 38 societies of the IEEE and is known globally for its computing standards activities.

Dr. Conte has been on the Georgia Tech faculty since 2008 as a professor in the School of Computer Science and accepted a joint appointment with ECE this past summer.   An IEEE Fellow, he is the chair of the IEEE Computer Society Awards Committee and is an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Computers and the IEEE Computer and IEEE Micro magazines. His research is in the areas of computer architecture and compiler optimization, including manycore architectures, microprocessor architectures, back-end compiler code generation, architectural performance evaluation, and embedded computer system architectures.

This is also the 25th anniversary of the BCTM, and a number of special events are planned, including a evening banquet at the World of Coke. The day-long Sunday short course will be on mm-wave technology, devices, modeling, circuits and systems. A Ken Byers Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, John Cressler is the Technical Program Chair of the 2011 BCTM. The conference will be held in the Global Learning Center in Technology Square on Sunday-Tuesday, October 9-11. Students are especially encouraged to attend (student rates are deeply discounted). More information can be found at:

http://2011.ieee-bctm.org/home/

We hope to see you there!

Ms. Modarres co-wrote the award-winning paper,  "Three-Dimensional Integrated CMOS and High Density Biosensor Array Using Through-Silicon Vias," with Dr. Bakir and fellow Ph.D. student Ramasamy Ravindran. 

Some of the current challenges with label-free biosensors include developing robust interconnection solutions and protecting underlying CMOS circuitry in the presence of biological samples. This group's paper describes a novel biosensing platform based on silicon nanowire (SiNW) field effect transistors (FETs) vertically stacked on a CMOS chip with the aid of through-silicon-vias (TSVs). This proposed sensing platform consists of a high density sensor chip (10,000 sensors/cm2) using SiNW FETs where the source and drain of each FET sensor are accessed using TSVs from the back side of the chip.

Joining Dr. Zhang in this collaboration are Professor MichaelMalisoff, a control theorist and mathematician from Louisiana State University,and Professor Mark Patterson, a marine scientist and robotics expert from theCollege of William and Mary; this activity is supported by the National ScienceFoundation. The research goal is to develop robotic surveying methods toprovide a fast response to evaluate the immediate as well as longer termenvironmental impact of the oil spill or future events of a similar nature.

The Georgia Tech team has developed an autonomous boat namedVictoria that successfully performed autonomous surveys over a 300mx100m tidallagoon in the park under various weather conditions. The robotic surveyingmethods provide a low cost and convenient way to collect data in the marshareas that are difficult to access by human-based methods. Large amounts ofdata have been recorded from a crude oil sensor mounted on Victoria, whichindicated an average concentration of suspicious carbon-hydrates at the levelof 20-50 parts per billion. Such concentration, if confirmed to come from crudeoil, is not considered acutely toxic to fish and wildlife, but may have long-termnegative effects that are yet to be understood. 

In addition to Victoria, the Georgia Tech team deployed aremotely operated underwater robot named ROV-Beta that has collected water andsediment samples at spots where Victoria sensed high carbon-hydrateconcentrations. The composition of the samples can be further analyzed toidentify the species of the carbon-hydrates. The ROV-Beta has demonstrated thatit is able to collect the samples while keeping humans out of harm’s way.

An autonomous underwater vehicle, the Fetch, developed by theCollege of William and Mary, has been performing autonomous surveys side byside with Victoria. Drs. Zhang, Malisoff, and Patterson have developed acontrol method that has enabled Victoria and Fetch to synchronize their motion.Such cooperative behaviors between different types of vehicles are essentialbuilding blocks toward developing a large scale, mobile sensor network tomonitor and protect a coastal area.

The Georgia Tech team has had greatcontributions from the following ECE and mechanical engineering (ME) graduatestudents: Shayok Mukhopadhyay (ECE), Steven Bradshaw (ECE), Chuanfeng Wang (ME),and undergraduate students Sean Maxon (ECE), Valerie Bazie (ECE), Phillip Cheng(ECE), and Brian Redden (ME). The full list of students who have designed andbuilt Victoria and ROV-Beta can be found at the website of the Georgia Tech-SavannahRobotics-http://gtsr.gtsav.gatech.edu/.

The paper entitled "A High-Performance and Energy-Efficient Virtually Tagged Stack Cache Architecture for Multi-Core Environments" was selected for this award out of 271 papers submitted to the conference. Dr. Kim, who is an assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Georgia Tech, coauthored this paper with members of his research group, ECE Ph.D. student Suk Chan Kang and ECE postdoctoral fellow Hyunggyu Lee, and Chrysostomos Nicopoulos from the Department of ECE at the University of Cyprus.

Dr. Kim and his team have developed the first stack cache architecture geared toward multicore processors. Their research is the hardware support for an operating system providing utility that selects and boosts up one performance-dominating target multi-threaded process. He and his team demonstrated that special level-one virtually tagged stack caches can significantly boost the performance of a system running one heavy, dominating, multi-threaded workload–among other applications–while actually reducing its energy consumption. This scheme is aimed at modern server environments and data centers, and results from this research are fostering new directions in several areas of multicore computing, which is expected to be the main design paradigm for future digital convergence platforms.

The title of Dr. Lee's award-winning project is "Architectural Exploration for Emerging Memory Technologies." This work will investigate the impact of emerging “storage class memories” (SCM) to the logic design, memory architecture, overall platform design, and their applications for future multi-core computing systems. Dr. Lee and his team will focus on phase-change memory (PCM), spin-torque-transfer memory (STT-RAM), and memristors. These memories demonstrate better characteristics in density, scalability, power, process compatibility, and non-volatility than current commodity memory technologies such as SRAM and DRAM and will eventually become part of the memory hierarchy of a computing system, including the last-level cache (to substitute SRAM), main memory (to co-locate with DRAM), and storage (to replace magnetic drives). The goal of this project is to exploit and quantify the benefits and to also address the reliability challenges of these novel memory technologies with architectural level solutions.

Dr. Lee is one of two faculty members from Georgia Tech to receive a 2011 IBM Faculty Award. Ling Liu, a professor in the School of Computer Science within the College of Computing, also received this honor.

Bestowed by the Board of Regents, which oversees the University System of Georgia, the title recognizes "outstanding full-time principal researchers" within the University System. Regents' Researchers distinguish themselves by their contributions to home universities, published works, and activity in professional societies.

Dr. Bennett, who earned her doctoral degree in electrical engineering at Georgia Tech and joined GTRI in 1996, founded GTRI's Logistics and Maintenance Applied Research Center in 2000. Focused on wireless and mobile solutions, the center has won two national awards. In 2005, Dr. Bennett became director of GTRI's Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory, which has expertise in broad areas of electro-optics, ranging from EO system design and measurement to EO modeling and analysis to microelectronics and nanotechnology.

Although Dr. Bennett's own research interests are equally diverse, she finds optical imaging systems especially appealing due to the field's complexity and wide range of applications. She also focuses on radio frequency identification (RFID) and container security technology projects.

Among other projects, Dr. Bennett's research team is building a security system that will monitor cargo containers from the point of loading to point of arrival, a project sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security.

One of the system's devices will monitor container doors to see if anyone has attempted to open them. Another device in the system will detect if a hole has been cut in the container.

Container security has important implications in the supply chain, Dr. Bennett explained: "Right now we don't really know what happens when a container is en route. Someone could open the door of a container and steal the goods. Or worse, they could put in contraband or weapons of mass destruction."

Today inspections are random and manpower only allows for about five percent of cargo to be inspected, Dr. Bennett added. "Our system will enable inspectors to make better decisions about which containers should be examined."

In addition to her work at GTRI, Dr. Bennett is a professor at Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Dr. Bennett also makes time to serve on variety of professional organizations including the World Customs Organization, IEEE, Optical Society of America, and SPIE. She has written more than 85 publications, holds a patent on integrated sensor radio frequency identification with location, and has numerous patents pending for container security innovations.

GTRI and resident instruction are different environments, Dr. Bennett observed. "There are different skills required and different perspectives on what needs to be accomplished — and I benefit from being in both environments. In addition to the incredible research going on at Georgia Tech, there's great collaboration and camaraderie with colleagues. It's what has kept me here for so long."

As a part of this mission, Paul G. Steffes, a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, and his team are investigating the properties and structure of the deep atmosphere of Jupiter.  For more information, read the August 2 Georgia Tech news release, "Atmospheric Simulations Support NASA Mission to Jupiter."

Dr. Michaels joined Georgia Tech in 2002 as an associate professor in the School of ECE. Prior to that, she worked in industry, first at a government laboratory, then co-founding a startup company, and finally serving as manager of Systems Development at Panametrics, Inc. in Waltham, Mass. For the past four years, Dr. Michaels has served as the chair of the ECE Undergraduate Committee, which is in the process of implementing curriculum revisions approved by the ECE faculty last year. She was a member of the Institute Student Honor Committee from 2002-2009 and served as alternate chair from 2004-2009.

As co-director of the Quantitative Ultrasonic Evaluation, Sensing, and Testing Laboratory within ECE, Dr. Michaels is active in the international nondestructive evaluation and structural health monitoring communities. She is affiliated with the systems and controls and digital signal processing technical interest groups within the School. She is a senior member of IEEE, and is an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement. Her current research interests include signal processing, wave propagation, pattern recognition, detection and estimation, data fusion, and automated measurement systems, primarily related to non-medical ultrasonic applications.

Dr. Michaels is replacing Douglas B. Williams, who is now the interim chair for the School and who held the ECE undergraduate affairs associate chair position for eight years. "I’d personally like to thank Jenny for agreeing to take on this important responsibility. She has been a tremendous asset to the School and the Institute in her leadership and teamwork in academic matters, most especially with the ECE Undergraduate Committee and the ECE undergraduate curriculum review process. Please join me in lending your support to her as she begins her new role and throughout her tenure in this position."

The title of the award-winning paper was "Laterally-Excited Silicon Bulk Acoustic Resonators with Sidewall AlN," which he co-wrote with his Ph.D. advisor Farrokh Ayazi, an ECE professor, co-director of the Center for MEMS and Microsystems Technologies, and leader of the Integrated MEMS Group.

This paper presents their work in bulk acoustic microresonators in silicon that are piezoelectrically actuated using a thin layer of Aluminum Nitride (AlN) on their lateral sidewalls. A record low motional resistance of 35 Ω was measured in air for a high-Q 100MHz silicon resonator, at least 10 times smaller compared to its capacitive counterparts. The novel lateral transduction scheme introduced in this work significantly improves electromechanical coupling due to the large longitudinal piezoelectric stress coefficient of AlN, as well as a larger effective transduction area, which is scalable with structure thickness.

This technique brings closer the realization of fully-integrated wide-band spectral processing units in silicon at very low power for cognitive radio applications, which were previously not possible due to the low efficiency of traditional transduction mechanisms. Additional potential applications include micro- and nano-mechanical switches with small actuation voltage and small form factor vibration energy harvesters.

Mr. Lai received the award for the paper entitled "Large Area 19.6% Efficient Rear Passivated Silicon Solar Cells with Local AL BSF and Screen-Printed Contacts" that he co-wrote with his Ph.D. advisor Ajeet Rohatgi, ECE Regents' Professor and director of the University Center for Excellence in Photovoltaics Research and Education (UCEP).  Additional coauthors were Ajay Upadhyaya, Rishi Ramanathan, Arnab Das, Keith Tate, Vijaykumar Upadhyaya, Aditya Kapoor, and Chai-Wei Chen, all also of UCEP.

Moving high-efficiency and low-cost solar cell technology from the lab to commercial application requires overcoming numerous challenges. The small area lab-scale experiments used in the initial research must be extended to large-area, commercial grade cells before they can be accepted in the real world. Research at UCEP shows how new silicon solar cell technology can make this transition from the lab by adding three key improvements to the manufacturing process. The resulting efficiency of 19.6% in the demonstration cell represents the highest efficiency in this class of fully screen-printed commercial grade solar cell to date.

Advised by John D. Cressler, Mr. Coen is a Ph.D. student in the SiGe Devices and Circuits Group in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Georgia Tech. His proposal was entitled "SiGe Front-end Electronics for Space-based Radar Applications," which aims to exploit the unique capabilities of SiGe electronics to operate robustly in extreme environments such as space to enable a new generation of space-based radar systems for remote sensing and which can provide dramatic reductions in mission size, weight, and power.

The goal of NSTRF is to provide the nation with a pipeline of highly skilled engineers and technologists to improve America's technological competitiveness. NASA Space Technology Fellows will perform innovative space technology research while building the skills necessary to become future technological leaders.

A Ph.D. student in the Georgia Robotics and Intelligent Systems Lab, Mr. Droge is advised by Magnus Egerstedt. Mr. Droge is working on the problem of producing complex motions using libraries of simple controllers. The particular application on which he is focusing is snake robotics and how to produce and combine snake "gaits" to make the snake navigate cluttered environments. Both he and Dr. Egerstedt are based in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech.

Established by Marty Klein, the side scan sonar inventor, this award recognizes a team or individual's appreciation for the practical applications of their knowledge and skills as well as their passion for the field of marine science and technology.

The theme of this year's competition was the use of remotely operated vehicles in the offshore oil and gas industry, with a particular focus on the challenges that were faced during the Gulf of Mexico deepwater oil spill. The event was held at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Tex.

This program, coordinated by the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CETL) and funded by the Lilly Endowment, is for assistant professors who want to develop their full teaching potential. The 10 teaching fellows chosen for this program will take part in weekly seminars and other activities designed to help enhance teaching performance, and they will participate in Celebrating Teaching Day next spring, where they will display posters or multimedia exhibits about their projects and innovations in teaching.

Dr. Rozell has been on the ECE faculty since 2008, where he is a member of the bioengineering and digital signal processing technical interest groups. He is also affiliated with the Laboratory for Neuroengineering and the Center for Signal and Image Processing.

An electrical engineering major in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Georgia Tech, Mr. Roca received this award for outstanding work on his project "Smart Passive Wireless Gas Sensor Using Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes with Inkjet Printing Technology." This project is the first real world demonstration of inkjet-printed low-cost wireless sensors on paper and plastics utilizing nanotechnology-based structures, namely carbon nanotubes. His work could potentially set the foundation for the first quality-of-life ubiquitous sensor networks that truly bridge nanotechnology, RF, and "green electronics."

Mr. Roca is an ECE Opportunity Research Scholar program participant, and he is advised by Professor Emmanouil M. (Manos) Tentzeris and ECE Ph.D. student Hoseon Lee.

The George Montefiore Award is given every five years, and in 2010, the award recognizes fundamental contributions to smart grids or smart electricity networks. The award will be presented at the Montefiore Award Workshop on "Challenges and Opportunities of Electric Energy Systems of the Future," which will take place in Liege, Belgium on September 16.

The award includes a cash prize of 25,000 euros that Dr. Meliopoulos will share with award co-recipient Goran Andersson of ETH-Zurich. Dr. Meliopoulos will use his monies to finance the Clayton Griffin Student Award, which is presented at the annual Protective Relaying Conference that he coordinates each year, and another student award at the Technical University of Athens, Greece, where he earned his undergraduate degree.

Dr. Williams joined GeorgiaTech in 1989 as an assistant professor in ECE, and for the past eight years, hehas served as the School’s associate chair for undergraduate affairs. Whileassociate chair, Dr. Williams has had numerous opportunities to represent ECE,both on campus and to external audiences. In the past year, he has served onGeorgia Tech’s Executive Board, chaired the International Plan Committee, andbeen Georgia Tech’s advocate to the University System of Georgia’s FacultyCouncil.

A long-time member of the Centerfor Signal and Image Processing, Dr. Williams is active within the IEEE SignalProcessing Society. Within that Society, he has been a member-at-large on theBoard of Governors, an area editor for the IEEESignal Processing Magazine, and a member of the technical committees forSignal Processing Theory & Methods and Signal Processing Education. Dr.Williams also represents IEEE as an ABET Program Evaluator for electricalengineering and computer engineering.

The search for a permanentECE school chair will begin in August, and the composition of the search committeewill be announced later this summer. Plans for temporarily filling Dr.Williams’ current role as ECE associate chair for undergraduate affairs areevolving and will be announced at a later date.

“I’d personally like tothank Doug for agreeing to take on this important responsibility, and I am veryconfident that he will lead the School very effectively until a permanentschool chair can be identified,” Dr. May said. “Please join me in lending yoursupport to him as he assumes the interim school chair role at the beginning ofnext month and throughout his tenure in this position.”

Dr. Bhatti will study the adherence of physical therapy patients completing in-home exercise using the HAMMS device as a data-logging tool to see if patients over-report exercise completion and if HAMMS will improve adherence.  Her mentoring team will be led by Georgia Tech ECE Professor Robert J. Butera, Jr.; Susan Herdman, PT-PhD; and Ronald Tusa, MD-PhD at the Emory Dizziness and Balance Center.

The ComSoc & Information Theory Society Joint Paper Award is one of two paper awards that recognizes outstanding papers published in any publication of the Communications Society or the Information Theory Society within the previous three calendar years. Drs. McLaughlin and Bloch share this award with their paper coauthors, João Barros and Miguel Rodrigues from the University of Porto (Portugal).

With the widespread deployment of wireless networks, mobile devices have become ubiquitous and are trusted to securely convey sensitive information such as bank records or medical files. However, by nature, wireless signals are broadcasted over the air, which makes eavesdropping particularly easy, even with off-the-shelf devices. In this paper, the authors propose to secure wireless communications by harnessing the imperfections of the wireless physical-layer, such as the gain fluctuations induced by changes in the environment, and they developed and analyzed algorithms to extract unbreakable secret keys between two wireless terminals. This research could be used to add a layer of security to many existing systems, such as WiFi networks, wireless sensor networks, or near-field-communication protocols.

The MEMS technology developed by Northrop Grumman and Georgia Tech during the initial 12-month award period will form the basis for a micro resonator gyro capable of achieving navigation grade performance. Utilizing a new MEMS fabrication process, the Northrop Grumman-led team will produce a proof-of-concept micro gyro that can perform as well as current silicon MEMS devices in a smaller size, lighter weight and lower power package.

"The new micro-fabrication process that Northrop Grumman and Georgia Tech are developing for this program is truly groundbreaking," said Charles Volk, vice president and chief technology officer of Northrop Grumman's Navigation Systems Division. "It will enable us to move navigation technology forward by creating miniature gyros which can be utilized on a variety of applications, from unmanned vehicles to hand-held devices."

DARPA's Microscale Rate Integrating Gyroscope program seeks to develop miniature navigation grade gyros for use in personal navigation, unmanned vehicle navigation, GPS denied/challenged locations, and other size and power constrained applications requiring precision navigation. Northrop Grumman, in partnership with Georgia Tech, was awarded a research and development contract for the preliminary design, development and testing of micro-resonator devices.

"The Northrop Grumman and Georgia Tech team will advance the frontier of micro- and nano-fabrication, enabling the extreme miniaturization of highly stable navigation devices, with small energy dissipation," said Farrokh Ayazi, a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Georgia Tech. Dr. Ayazi is a principal investigator for this project and serves as co-director for ECE's Center for MEMS and Microsystems Technology.

Northrop Grumman offers its customers more than 50 years of navigation experience and produces navigation products utilizing a range of technologies including fiber-optic gyro-based systems, Northrop Grumman's exclusive hemispherical resonator gyro, unique ZLG™ gyros, spinning mass gyros, ring laser gyros and micro-electro-mechanical-system gyros.

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The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the world's premier research universities. Ranked seventh among U.S. News & World Report's top public universities and the eighth best engineering and information technology university in the world by Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Academic Ranking of World Universities, Georgia Tech's more than 20,000 students are enrolled in its Colleges of Architecture, Computing, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Management and Sciences. Tech is among the nation's top producers of women and minority engineers. The Institute offers research opportunities to both undergraduate and graduate students and is home to more than 100 interdisciplinary units plus the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

Northrop Grumman is a leading global security company providing innovative systems, products and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems, and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide. Please visit www.northropgrumman.com for more information.

Currently, Dr. May is the Steve W. Chaddick School Chair for the School of ECE. Earlier this month, he was appointed as the next dean of the College of Engineering, to be effective July 1.

Since 1999, the American Diabetes Association has partnered with the National Father's Day Council to host the Father of the Year Awards dinner. Each year, these two organizations recognize numerous men from across the nation for the outstanding strength, commitment, and love that they exhibit as fathers. These men have not only attained success in their chosen field or endeavor, but also teach their children well and serve as good citizens and members of the community. 

To learn more about the American Diabetes Association, visit http://www.diabetes.org/ and to learn more about the American Diabetes Association/Father's Day Council partnership, click here.

His poster, entitled "Quantifying Upper-Arm Rehabilitation Metrics through Interaction with a Humanoid Robot," describes using robotics to create an enjoyable physical rehabilitation session while obtaining quantifiable physical therapy metrics. By engaging the subject in a mimicking game with a humanoid robot, Mr. Brooks and his Ph.D. advisor Ayanna Howard use several image processing techniques in order to obtain the subject's arm positions throughout a video sequence. The arm positions are then used to determine the subject's range of motion and velocity data.

The Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing is sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery, the Computing Research Association, and the IEEE Computer Society. The conference is named for Richard Tapia, a professor and mathematician at Rice University who is nationally known for his leadership in education and outreach.

Advised by ECE Associate Professor W. Alan Doolittle, Mr. Greenlee's research interests include the fabrication, characterization, and numerical modeling of lithium-based memristors. A memristor is a resistor whose resistance depends on previous input to the device and emulates the synapses in the brain. The development of lithium-based memristors could ultimately usher in a new era of devices that compute similarly to the brain.

Administered by the American Society for Engineering Education, the NDSEG Fellowship is sponsored and funded by the Department of Defense (DoD). NDSEG selections are made by the Air Force Research Laboratory/Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Office of Naval Research, the Army Research Office, and the DoD High Performance Computing Modernization Program Office.

The purpose of this award is to recognize outstanding contributions to the fields encompassed by the Society through invention, technical development, publications, or new product implementation. Dr. Bakir will receive this award at the 2011 IEEE Electronic Components Technology Conference to be held in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. on June 2.

This award honors individuals who make outstanding contributions to the semiconductor and electronics fields in academics, research, industry, or public service. Dr. Tummala was recognized for his lifetime achievements in microelectronics packaging research and education both at IBM and as the director of the 3D Systems Packaging Research Center at Georgia Tech, as well as for his leadership of the IEEE Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technology Society.

Dr. Tummala has been a faculty member in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering since 1993, where he holds the Joseph M. Pettit Chair in Electronics Packaging and is a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar.

Mr. Hall, who works in the Quantitative Ultrasonic Evaluation, Sensing, and Testing (QUEST) Laboratory, presented his work entitled, "Ultrasonic Guided Wave Imaging for Damage Characterization," at the conference. He is advised by ECE Professor Jennifer E. Michaels, who was a co-author on the paper, as was Paul Fromme of University College London.

This research is supported by the NASA Graduate Student Researchers Program in the form of a fellowship to Mr. Hall and by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.  His research, of which this paper is only a small part, has significantly pushed the state-of-the-art in the development of in situ ultrasonic methods for damage detection, localization, and characterization over large areas of critical structures.

“While each existing center will continue to be responsible for its own specific programs, IEN will provide a single point of entry for industry and government organizations that seek to leverage Georgia Tech’s intellectual capabilities and a projection point for greater thought leadership in this significant research domain,” Cross said. “From a practical standpoint, we can also maximize cost efficiencies by sharing equipment and facilities, while more effectively utilizing current personnel to facilitate more rapid expansion of the research.”

The IEN will be led by Executive Director Mark Allen. Under his leadership, the new center will focus on integrating existing center personnel and equipment into the Marcus Nanotechnology Building and other nearby spaces.  

According to Cross, IEN builds on the vision and leadership established by Nanotechnology Research Center Director James Meindl, who has positioned Georgia Tech as a global leader in this area.

“Georgia Tech applauds his dedicated leadership and insight, which will both play a key role in the Institute’s renewal of related NSF-funded programs,” Cross said.

Patterned after the highly successful Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, which is comprised of 15 different research centers, IEN will include the following centers and research programs:

• Center for Compound Semiconductors
• Center for MEMS and Microsystems Technologies
• Georgia Electronic Design Center
• Georgia Tech Quantum Institute
• Georgia Tech Research Institute’s research in microelectronics and nanotechnology
• Interconnect Focus Center
• Interconnect and Packaging Center

• MaterialsResearch Science and Engineering Center (Epitaxial Graphene)

• Microelectronics Research Center
• Microsystems Packaging Research Center
• University Center of Excellence for Photovoltaics Research and Education

“Our bold aspiration is to develop a world-renowned epicenter for electronics, nanotechnology and related materials research,” Cross added.

With its move into 6th place, the computer engineering program tied its highest position ever in this survey, which was last achieved in the 2006 USNWR rankings. The electrical engineering program held steady at 6th place for the fourth year in a row. The College of Engineering ranked number 4 for the seventh consecutive year, with most engineering programs also ranking in the top 10. A Georgia Tech news release detailing the rankings of all of the Institute's engineering disciplines may be found at http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?nid=64951.

"Our continued success in ECE can be contributed to continually recruiting and retaining the finest faculty and students that are supported by an excellent group of research and administrative staff," said Gary S. May, professor and Steve W. Chaddick School Chair. "While these sorts of rankings mean different things to different people, I am very proud of our long record of sustained high placements among the very best of our peer institutions."

ECE students who made the finals included Aaron Fan, Xo Wang, and Jamison Go who developed the Velociryder, and Patrick Caputo and BME student James Molini who teamed up to form Waste to Watts. Congratulations to all of you–and to all the student finalists–for a job well done!

This exhibit is part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the integration of Georgia Tech in 1961. Read the story and watch the video.

Being chosen for this honor is considered the equivalent to receiving a Best Paper Award. This year, IEEE Micro chose 11 papers to highlight.

An associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Georgia Tech, Dr. Lee co-wrote this paper entitled "Security Refresh: Protecting Phase-Change Memory against Malicious Wear Out" with his current Ph.D. student Nak Hee Seong and his former Ph.D. student Dong Hyuk Woo. This work addressed the technological limitation of an emerging memory technology known as Phase Change Memory (PCM).

PCM provides benefits such as non-volatility, low-power, high-density with access speed comparable to DRAM, yet more scalable in feature size. Industries have been investigating PCM as a candidate to replace DRAM, but PCM's usability is hindered by its limited write endurance. Dr. Lee and his team proposed a novel, wear-leveling technique called security refresh, which randomly shuffles the physical location of each memory block to slow down wear-out caused by frequent writes to the same locations. The scheme evens out the write distribution in the PCM space and obfuscates address access patterns to prevent worst-case writes or malicious exploits. Security refresh can effectively extend PCM's lifetime to approach its theoretical limit, enabling its practical use as an integral part of the system memory for future computing systems.

The McDowell Award is given to individuals for outstanding recent theoretical, design, educational, practical, or other similar innovative contribution that falls within the scope of IEEE Computer Society interest. Dr. Akyildiz is being honored by the Society "for pioneering contributions to wireless sensor network architectures and communication protocols" and will receive this accolade at an awards dinner to be held on May 25 in Albuquerque, N.M. during the IEEE Computer Society Board of Governors Meeting.

Dr. Akyildiz is the Byers Professor in Telecommunications in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Georgia Tech and is the director of the Broadband and Wireless Networking Lab. Currently, he serves as the chair of the School's telecommunications technical interest group. Dr. Akyildiz has received numerous technical accolades from IEEE and the Association for Computing Machinery. He has also been honored by Georgia Tech and ECE for his student advisement, junior faculty mentorship, and scholarly publications.

The $98,650 grant to these award recipients is part of a $1.4 million grant by the Intel Foundation managed by SRC Education Alliance's Undergraduate Research Opportunities program (URO).

The URO is an innovative program that 1) provides undergraduates with valuable research experience and mentoring; 2) seeks to attract a diverse student population, including women and other under-represented groups; and 3) empowers the kind of bright, well-educated and experienced scientists and engineers U.S. high-tech companies are clamoring for.

"The collaboration between the Intel Foundation and Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering has been an extremely valuable partnership that led to the successful Opportunity Research Scholars' Program," said Dr. Gary S. May, professor and Steve W. Chaddick School Chair of ECE. "With the support of SRC's Education Alliance, this innovative program of Intel-sponsored undergraduate research teams exposes our students to real-world engineering problems and contributes to our goal of giving them every possibility to succeed."

The following are Georgia Tech award recipients, new and continuing in 2010-2011, their graduating classes and their majors:

-Christina Bins, 2011, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
-Alex Cardwell, 2013, Electrical Engineering
-Penyen Chi, 2012, Computer Engineering
-Brendon Duncombe-Smith, 2013, Electrical Engineering
-Samuel Elia, 2012, Electrical Engineering
-Aaron Fan, 2012, Electrical Engineering
-Trevor Green,2013, Computer Engineering
-Christopher Hilgert, 2013, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
-Brett Ireland, 2012, Computer Engineering
-Justin Jiang, 2013, Electrical Engineering
-Layla Marshall, 2013, Electrical Engineering
-Sebastian Palacios, 2011, Electrical Engineering
-Mark Pinturak, 2013, Computer Engineering
-Pranav Ramesh, 2012, Electrical Engineering
-Adithya Ravichandran, 2011, Electrical Engineering
-Rolando Roca, 2011, Electrical Engineering
-Jeremy Thompson, 2012, Computer Engineering
-Samual Wilson, 2012, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Founded in 1989, the Intel Foundation is a philanthropic organization focused on programs that advance education and improve communities worldwide. By providing funding for national and localized grants, the foundation helps fuel innovation in classrooms, empower women and underserved youth, and enables Intel employees to serve the needs of their communities. The goals of the Intel Foundation are to increase interest in math and science education, and to help develop a diverse U.S. workforce.

The following Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering students have previously received Intel-funded SRC Education Alliance URO grants: Seema Bhandari, Courtney Drewski, Jeremy Jones, Sandhya Rajaraman, Rodrigo Quinteros Sorio, Laura Vogelaar and Vernell Woods.

What they are saying about the SRC Education Alliance URO Program:

"SRCEA's URO program has given me an amazing opportunity to participate in cutting edge research areas as an undergraduate at Georgia Tech. The hands-on experience I have gained by working with graduate students and faculty members on real-world problems has sharpened my problem solving skills while also giving me exposure to research at a top level university. This invaluable experience has shown me that I want to pursue a career in research and has encouraged me to strive for a graduate degree." -- Pranav Ramesh

"The URO grant/Intel & SRCEA partnership has allowed for my participation in undergraduate research at Georgia Tech. Without this opportunity, I would not have known that I wanted to go to graduate school. The availability of this program has also given me valuable skills that I will need to be successful in graduate school." -- Brett Ireland

About the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

The School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) is one of nine schools and departments in the College of Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. All ECE undergraduate and graduate programs are in the top 10 of the most recent college rankings by U.S. News & World Report. Almost 2,400 students are enrolled in the School's graduate and undergraduate programs, and in the last academic year, 677 degrees were awarded.

Over 110 ECE faculty members are involved in 11 areas of research, education, and commercialization--bioengineering, computer systems and software, digital signal processing, electric power, electromagnetics, electronic design and applications, microsystems, optics and photonics, systems and controls, telecommunications, and VLSI systems and digital design.

The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the world's premier research universities. Ranked seventh among U.S. News & World Report's top public universities and the eighth best engineering and information technology university in the world by Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Academic Ranking of World Universities, Georgia Tech's more than 20,000 students are enrolled in its Colleges of Architecture, Computing, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Management and Sciences. Tech is among the nation's top producers of women and minority engineers. The Institute offers research opportunities to both undergraduate and graduate students and is home to more than 100 interdisciplinary units plus the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

Greg Drayer won a GTRIC 2011 Fellowship Award, for his research poster, "Design and Simulation of a Reconfigurable Aquatic Habit for Experiments in Life Support Control." His Ph.D. advisor is Ayanna Howard, an associate professor in ECE specializing in systems and controls.

The GTRIC 2011 Best Designed Poster Award was presented to Jayant Ratti, whose Ph.D. advisor is George Vachtsevanos, ECE professor emeritus in systems and controls. Mr. Ratti's poster was entitled "Morphing Micro Aerial Robot with Quad Hybrid Energy-Efficient Mechatronics."

Three ECE Ph.D. students--Maysamreza Chamanzar, Kiruthika Devaraj, and Aakash Sahai--won GTRIC 2011 Travel Awards for their outstanding posters.

Mr. Chamanzar's poster was entitled "Ultra-compact On-chip Hybrid Plasmonic-photonic Sensors." He is advised by Ali Adibi, an ECE professor specializing in optics and photonics.

Ms. Devraj's poster was entitled "The Centimeter- and Millimeter-wavelength Ammonia Absorption Spectra under Jovian Conditions." She is advised by Paul Steffes, a professor who specializes in electromagnetics and telecommunications in the School of ECE.

A Ph.D. student based at Georgia Tech-Lorraine, Mr. Sahai's poster was entitled "Chaos in Laser Diodes." He is advised by David Citrin, a professor specializing in optics and photonics in ECE.

"This display of excellence in a diverse range of applications showcases the high quality of the breadth and depth of work done in ECE," said Gary S. May, professor and Steve W. Chaddick School Chair in ECE. "I'd like to wish Greg, Jayant, Maysamreza, Kiruthika, and Aakash much success as they continue to pursue innovative solutions to today's research challenges."

The award, sponsored by the Leon K. Kirchmayer Memorial Fund, recognizes Dr. Cressler for inspirational teaching and student mentoring in the field of advanced microelectronic devices and circuits.

Dr. Cressler will be presented with the award on February 21 at the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference(ISSCC), in San Francisco, Calif.

Known for his approachability and his unlimited patience, Dr. Cressler includes unique design experiences within his graduate courses so that students gain exposure to real-world challenges, learn to communicate with diverse audiences and work together in a team environment to solve complex problems, the IEEE award announcement said.

"John is passionately dedicated to finding engineering and technological solutions to the challenges that the world faces today, and he is an exemplary ambassador for our profession," said Gary S. May, fellow professor and Steve W. Chaddick School Chair of Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Dr. Cressler also instills his passion for social awareness within his students, examining both the positive and negative aspects of the global micro- and nanoelectronics revolution. According to former students, known to many in industry as "Cressler Students," Dr. Cressler has inspired them to use technology to build a better world and to seek balance in life while they excel professionally. He consistently receives high ratings from student surveys and is admired by students and faculty alike.

Dr. Cressler is considered a leading expert in silicon-germanium heterojunction bipolar transistor technology. This technology opens the door for low-cost but high-performance electronics and systems needed to support ever-increasing global communications needs. The experience he gained in industry prior to starting his teaching career clearly influences his classroom style and philosophy. He has maintained close ties to both industry and government sponsors, ensuring that his students' research has timely impact on the ever-changing communications marketplace.

Dr. Cressler also serves as faculty mentor for Georgia Tech's SURE program, which brings top-notch minority undergraduates to the school and incorporates them into research teams for a taste of what graduate school is all about.

Before joining Georgia Tech in 2002, Dr. Cressler worked at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. and served on the ECE faculty at Auburn University. He is an IEEE Fellow and is a previous recipient of the Georgia Tech Outstanding Faculty Leadership for the Development of Graduate Research Assistants Award (2007) and the Georgia Tech Class of 1940 W. Howard Ector Outstanding Teacher Award (2010).

Dr. Bhatti received the NSF CAREER Award for her project, "An Ultra-Low-Power MEMS-Based Implantable Biosystem for Restoring Vestibular Function-Platform for an Integrated Human-Centered Hybrid Biosystem."

Individuals suffering from bilateral vestibular dysfunction experience postural imbalance, dizziness, and nausea, and currently, they have no effective therapeutic options. Vestibular and associated balance dysfunction often leads to falls, and falls are linked to high rates of mortality and morbidity in the elderly, contributing significantly to today's skyrocketing healthcare costs.

The objective of Dr. Bhatti's research is to realize an ultra-low-power implantable biomedical microsystem capable of activating vestibular nerve fibers in the inner ear serving to convey head rotation cues to the central nervous system. The approach is to fabricate an ultra-low-power passive MEMS-based angular rotation sensors, interface the sensors with low-power signal processing and stimulation electronics, and integrate highly flexible polymeric multichannel electrode arrays for focused stimulation of vestibular nerve fibers. As a result, a viable low-power implantable vestibular biosystem may restore vestibular function and improve the quality of life for individuals experiencing vestibular hypofunction.

Dr. Mukhopadhyay received his NSF CAREER Award for his project, "3D Heterogeneous Integration for Power Reduction in Embedded Systems: Application to Wireless Image Sensing and Transport."

Wireless image/video communication networks are proliferating rapidly in applications like smart camera systems, military and civilian surveillance, green buildings, immersive computing, bio-telemetry, and autonomous robots/vehicles. Low-power embedded systems for multimedia sensing and communication are essential for their effective deployment.

Dr. Mukhopadhyay's research explores principles to minimize power dissipation of embedded systems for real-time imaging, high-volume multimedia processing, and wireless communication in time-varying noisy channel under Quality-of-Service (QoS) constraints. The heterogeneous integration of an image sensor, memory, digital, and RF in a 3D-integrated circuit (IC) is explored to achieve this goal. The functional and physical interactions of components, algorithms, and environment in the 3D heterogeneous IC is investigated to create system design, physical analysis, and real-time control principles for power reduction. The principles are applied to design a low-power 3D wireless image sensor node for a high-quality image/video communication network.

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education, and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.

A mark of great distinction, this award recognizes a chapter's service to their fellow students, school, university, and the surrounding community during 2009-10. The award will be formally presented at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association Annual Meeting in March 2010 in Phoenix, Ariz.

HKN is one of the largest honor societies in the country, with nearly 200 university chapters, a variety of committees, many active member volunteers, and thousands of student members. The number of chapters receiving the Outstanding Chapter Award six years in a row is seven, including the Beta Mu chapter of Georgia Tech.

"This is a tremendous achievement for our chapter of Eta Kappa Nu, which has been led this past year by Aakash Degwekar and Sean McGee, and their advisor, Professor Tom Gaylord," said Gary S. May, Steve W. Chaddick School Chair of ECE. "This award is once again very well deserved, and we all appreciate their hard work and dedication to making ECE and Georgia Tech a better place."

The IEEE grade of Fellow is conferred by the board of directors upon a person with an extraordinary record of accomplishments in any IEEE field of interest.

The Georgia Tech faculty members promoted to IEEE Fellow, effective Jan. 1, 2011, include three professors from the College of Engineering's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, one from the college's School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and two from the College of Computing's School of Computer Science.

Mark G. Allen, Regents' Professor and Joseph M. Pettit Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, received his IEEE Fellow citation "for contributions to micro and nanofabrication technologies for microelectromechanical systems."

Dr. Allen, who joined Georgia Tech in 1989 and also a joint appointment with the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, researches new approaches to fabricate devices in the micro- to nanoscale from both silicon and non-silicon materials. He has published about 100 journal articles and 200 conference proceedings articles, and holds roughly 40 patents. Dr. Allen is co-founder of several companies, including CardioMEMS, which commercializes wireless implantable microsensors for treatment of aneurysms and congestive heart failure, and Axion Biosystems, which develops microelectrode arrays for in-vitro neural interfacing.

Mary Jean Harrold, professor in the School of Computer Science in the College of Computing, earned her IEEE Fellow status "for contributions to software systems."

Dr. Harrold's research involves developing efficient techniques and tools that will automate or partially automate development, testing and maintenance tasks. Her focus is on the investigation of the scalability issues of these techniques through algorithm development and empirical evaluation. Dr. Harrold is the ADVANCE Professor of Computing and former associate dean of the College.

Jay Lee, an adjunct professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, was elevated to IEEE Fellow status "for contributions to model-based predictive control applications."

In 2000, Dr. Lee joined the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, after serving on the faculty at Auburn and Purdue universities. In 2010, Dr. Lee became the head of the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon, Korea.

He was a 1993 recipient of the National Science Foundation's Young Investigator Award. The author of more than 120 manuscripts in SCI journals with more than 2,500 ISI citations, Dr. Lee's research interests are in the areas of system identification, state estimation, robust control, model predictive control, and approximate dynamic programming.

John Papapolymerou, professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was awarded the IEEE Fellow citation "for contributions to flexible, microwave and wireless components and systems."

Dr. Papapolymerou has been instrumental in the development of conformal, flexible and lightweight radio frequency hardware for wireless communication systems and radars. The focus of this work is to build high performance but low profile and low cost radio frequency components (e.g. antennas, transmitters and receivers) and front ends that can be used in high speed commercial wireless systems, radars for environmental sensing and defense applications, and sensors and communication modules for smart grid systems.

Gabriel Rincon-Mora, associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, earned the IEEE Fellow citation "for contributions to energy- and power-integrated circuit design."

Dr. Rincon-Mora researches design and development of system-on-chip and system-in-package integrated circuits that derive energy and power from miniaturized fuel cells, thin-film lithium-ion batteries, wireless microsensors, and other mobile and portable applications.

A senior integrated circuit designer for Texas Instruments from 1994-2003, Dr. Rincon-Mora served as an adjunct professor at Georgia Tech from 1999-2001 before joining the faculty in 2001. He has written eight books, one book chapter, and more than 120 scientific publications. He holds 37 issued patents and more than 26 commercial power chip designs.

Ellen Zegura, professor and chair of the School of Computer Science in the College of Computing, was elevated to IEEE Fellow status "for contributions to disruption-tolerant networking."

Dr. Zegura's research focuses on development of wide-area (Internet) networking services and mobile wireless networking. Her focus is on services implemented both at the network layer, as part of network infrastructure, and at the application layer. In the context of mobile wireless networking, she is interested in challenged environments where traditional ad hoc and infrastructure-based networking approaches fail. Dr. Zegura is one of the prime movers behind the College's Computer for Good initiative.

Mr. Sukuraman and Dr. Tummala shared this honor with their Georgia Tech coauthors Venky Sundaram, Sunghwan Min, and Nitesh Kumbhat, Christian Nopper of STMicroelectronics, and Georgia Tech colleagues Tapobrata Bandyopadhyay, Hunter Chan, Qiao Chen, and Fuhan Liu. Dr. Tummala is the Joseph M. Pettit Chair in Electronics Packaging and is the director of the 3D Systems Packaging Research Center.

In this paper, glass is proposed as a superior alternative interposer technology to address the limitations of both silicon and organic interposers. The inherent electrical properties of glass, together with large area panel size availability, make it a superior material compared to organic and silicon-based interposers. However, glass is not without its challenges. It suffers in two ways: 1) formation of vias at low cost, and 2) its lower thermal conductivity compared to silicon. This research explores glass as an interposer material, and addresses these key challenges in through package via (TPV) formation and subsequent low cost and large area metallization to achieve very high I/Os at fine pitch. The purpose of this research is to develop and demonstrate a novel glass package technology, which will be applicable in future microelectronic systems.

Mr. Brooks' paper was entitled "Quantifying Upper-Arm Rehabilitation Metrics for Children through Interaction with a Humanoid Robot." The objective of this research effort is to further rehabilitation techniques for children by developing and validating the core technologies needed to integrate therapy instruction with child-robot play in order to improve upper-arm rehabilitation. His Ph.D. advisor is Ayanna Howard, an associate professor specializing in systems and controls.

Mr. Brown's paper, "Early Latch-up Detection of Gate Bipolar Transistor Faults in Electric Motor Drives," looks at the increased importance of IGBT reliability due to widespread use in military and commercial applications. Advancements in early fault-detection aids the development of the Navy's next generation of integrated power systems, which increase "fight through" capability and survivability by enabling near instantaneous reconfiguration of power resources following damage or equipment failure. He is advised by ECE Professor Emeritus George Vachtsevanos, who specializes in systems and controls.

The paper written by Mr. Charles and Ms. Kressner was entitled "A Causal Locally Competitive Algorithm for the Sparse Decomposition of Audio Signals." Recent results show that extracting information from a signal by solving a complex optimization problem can lead to better signal processing solutions. However, no good methods exist for solving this optimization in real-time as signals stream in, which is necessary for applications such as hearing aids and cochlear implants. The research in this paper presents a dynamical system that approximately solves these optimization problems for streaming audio signals in real time. Both of these Ph.D. students are advised by Christopher Rozell, an ECE assistant professor specializing in bioengineering and digital signal processing.

In the research described in this abstract, sequential neural network models were developed to characterize critical steps in fabricating integrated circuits. The data used were collected from an industrial process, a distinguishing feature of this research.

The models performed well, with testing errors below 5 percent, demonstrating the flexibility of the sequential neural network modeling process. Additionally, the models were used in a sensitivity analysis to study the output response to the various inputs. Future work will include using the models as part of a model-based supervisory control system.

The paper was chosen for this honor by a majority vote of 150 attendants of the session on Filters and TSV-based RF Devices. This honor is shared by his coauthors from Georgia Tech--Sunghwan Min, Venky Sundaram, Fuhan Liu, Hunter Chan, Vijay Sukumaran, and Seunghyun Hwang. Dr. Tummala is the Joseph M. Pettit Chair in Electronics Packaging and is the director of the 3D Systems Packaging Research Center.

This paper demonstrates for the first time RF integration in ultra-thin glass packages with insertion loss comparable to ceramic packages and better than the best organics and silicon interposers. As a result, low-cost, panel-based glass and silicon packages are expected to enable mainstream applications in next generation of ULK ICs and 3D-ICs, leading to ultra-miniaturized electronic and bio-electronic systems. This approach was developed by the Georgia Tech 3D Systems Packaging Research Center in partnership with a consortium of 10 global companies, including Qualcomm, STMicroelectronics, TSMC, Asahi Glass, and Corning Glass.