The paper was published in volume 7, issue number 2 in 2010. Dr. Ghovanloo’s and Dr. Huo’s work, along with others included on the list, is free to read online until December 31, 2012.

Dr. Ghovanloo is an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, and Dr. Huo is a recent Ph.D. graduate of Dr. Ghovanloo’s research group and now works at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington.

Dr. Ferri is a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech and is also the associate chair for ECE Graduate Affairs. She was chosen for this honor based on nominations from female undergraduate engineering students and was recognized for her positive impact on students through her teaching excellence and her efforts to enrich the learning experience.

A member of the ECE faculty since 1988, Dr. Ferri specializes in systems and controls and computer systems and software.

A participant in the Opportunity Research Scholars Program in the School of ECE, Ms. Korby was recognized for her work, “Properties of Photosensitive Polynorbornene Dielectric,” in the Interconnect and Packaging Center under the guidance of Ph.D. mentor Brennen Mueller and faculty advisor Paul Kohl, Regents’ Professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Her research addresses a challenge in the microelectronics industry where polymers are commonly used as insulating layers in substrates, packages, and semiconductor devices. For this purpose, however, the polymer films must be cured so that they become permanent and mechanically rigid. Ms. Korby has been testing the viability of microwave curing to provide significantly faster cure times than conventional thermal curing. In addition, the effects of epoxy curing agents on the chemical, mechanical, and electrical properties of polymer films were also tested.

According to SRC staff, the judges reported stiff competition among the undergraduate research projects, yet Ms. Korby was awarded first place by unanimous vote due to her presentation skills, poise, and thorough knowledge of her research, all qualities that are addressed in workshops sponsored by the Opportunity Research Scholars Program, an undergraduate research experience that matches ECE students with Ph.D. student and faculty mentors.  About the conference, Ms. Korby said, “The Opportunity Research Scholars Program was an integral part of my success at TECHCON 2012, providing me with the skills and confidence necessary to present my research poster. Taking part in ORS was one of the best decisions I have made as an undergraduate and helped me grow as a student and an individual. TECHCON 2012 will always be a highlight of my undergraduate career.”

ORS participants and electrical engineering seniors Laura Blanca and Austin Foote were also among students chosen to present their work at the conference. Ms. Blanca presented her research project, “Characterization of Dickson Charge Pump Efficiencies with Varying Input Power and Frequencies,” and Mr. Foote presented his research project, “Improved Signal Integrity and Power Consumption in High Speed Digital Circuits.” Their advisors are Gregory D. Durgin and Madhavan Swaminathan, respectively, both faculty members in the School of ECE, and their ECE Ph.D. mentors are Chris Valenta and Satyan Telikepalli, respectively. ORS electrical engineering students Matias Almada, Aaron Garofano, Randy Montgomery, and ORS computer engineering student Nikhil Ramesh also attended TECHCON 2012.

The Semiconductor Research Corporation 14^th Annual TECHCON conference also marked the 30-year anniversary of collaborative work between industry and university researchers to achieve greater semiconductor enhancements and promote the new generations of chip technology. SRC’s expansive research programs include the Energy Research Initiative that focuses on electrical energy storage and power management and the Focus Center Research program that supports integrated circuit technology, components that are used in relatively all electronic equipment from mobile phones to computers. Attending the September conference were students and faculty from 52 of America’s top universities and distinguished representatives from industry and government.

VIP was selected by the NAE as one of 29 programs that "have successfully infused real-world experiences into engineering or engineering technology undergraduate education."

Undergraduates who join VIP can work on research with both peers and graduate students. They become members of teams, which focus on multidisciplinary work and can stay together for years. That way, students can devote time to large projects and establish relationships with older students. VIP work also counts toward degrees.

There were 95 nominations for the NAE distinction, and entries were judged on factors such as programs’ creativity and diversity. In assessing the VIP program, NAE observed that its participants "actively interact regarding both technical and managerial advice."

Some of Tech’s recent VIP groups include the Brain Beats team, which investigates human rhythmic ability, and the eDemocracy team, which examines methods for secure voting. One of the highlights of VIP is that it incorporates students from numerous academic fields. The program was established at Georgia Tech in 2008 by Edward J. Coyle, a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and director of the Arbutus Center for the Integration of Research and Education.

Two other Tech programs were also nominated for NAE recognition. The Inventure Prize competition, one of the nominees, encourages undergraduates to create an invention either individually or in teams. The first place entry wins $15,000.

The other nominee was the Senior Design project in the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE). All ISyE seniors participate in this capstone, which allows them to solve design problems for clients in either the corporate or non-profit worlds.

Since its establishment in 1999, Agilent has supported ECE through consortia memberships with the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) and the Georgia Tech Analog Consortium, funded individual faculty research projects in microsystems and electronic design and applications, and within the last five years, its unprecedented in-kind gifts of software, support, and training to GEDC totaling almost $54.3 million–making it the largest gift ever to Georgia Tech.

Read the article on the Agilent web site.

Electrical engineering placed fifth, down a position from last year but still in the elite top 5, and computer engineering ranked sixth, the same position that it held last year. The College of Engineering ranked fifth, and Georgia Tech retained its seventh place standing among public universities. To learn more, please read the news release on the Georgia Tech web site at http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?nid=153371 and the College of Engineering site at http://coe.gatech.edu/content/college-engineering-ranks-no-5-among-nations-best-undergraduate-programs. 

“Our success in ECE can be attributed to our innovative and internationally renowned academic and research programs, but none of these things would be possible without the hard work and commitment of our faculty, staff, and students,” said Steven W. McLaughlin, the Steve W. Chaddick School Chair of ECE. “Thank you for all of your efforts, and I look forward to working with all of you in the years to come.”

Drs. Zajić and Stüber share this award with their colleagues Thomas Pratt, a research professor at the University of Notre Dame, and Son Nguyen, a researcher with the Army Research Laboratory. They will receive this honor at an awards luncheon during the 76th IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Conference, to be held September 3-6 in Quebec City, Canada.

Mobile-to-mobile communication systems have recently drawn great attention because they have the potential to improve convenience and safety of automobile transportation. For example, sensor-equipped cars that communicate via wireless links (and thus create ad-hoc networks) can be used to reduce traffic accidents and facilitate traffic flow. Mobile-to-mobile communication systems also find applications in intelligent transportation systems, relay-based cellular networks, and future combat systems. The design of highly reliable mobile-to-mobile wireless communication systems requires a detailed understanding of propagation among vehicles. The awarded paper presents the first three-dimensional wideband channel model for mobile-to-mobile communications and presents experimental validation of this model.

This paper is a result of Dr. Zajić's Ph.D. thesis work while she was a member of Wireless Systems Laboratory, which is led by Dr. Stüber, and the research was funded by the Army Research Laboratory Collaborative Technology Alliance for Communications and Networking. Dr. Zajić is a new assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, while Dr. Stüber has been on the ECE faculty since 1986, where he is the Joseph M. Pettit Chair Professor in Communications. 
 

Ten-Year Service Awards

Jill Auerbach

Gee-Kung Chang

John Cressler

Biing Hwang (Fred) Juang

Chin-Hui Lee

Hsien-Hsin (Sean) Lee

Jenny Michaels

Tom Michaels

Sharon Pugh

Scott Sladek

Marvin Tingler

Twenty-Five-Year Service Awards

Ian Akyildiz

Daphne Bronner

Willam Hunt

Jim McClellan

Purnima Sharma

Thank you for your many years of hard work and dedication to ECE and Georgia Tech!

Dr. Hughes was appointed to EAB as a representative of the Technical Activities Board (TAB), another of the major IEEE boards. As president of the IEEE Education Society in 2007 and 2008, he served as a member of TAB. He has also served on IEEE's Accreditation Policy Council and Committee on Engineering Accreditation Activities, both of which report to EAB.

Dr. Hughes is currently serving in his fourth year as one of IEEE's members on the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET. Commission members chair accreditation visits and make decisions regarding the accreditation of more than 2,000 engineering programs at over 400 institutions in the United States and 20 other countries.

IEEE is the world’s largest professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity, with over 400,000 members worldwide.  Its fields of interest encompass electrical and computer engineering and related technologies. The EAB is one of IEEE's six major boards, reporting to the board of directors, responsible for governing IEEE's activities. It recommends policies on educational matters and implements programs specifically intended to serve the educational pursuits of IEEE members, the engineering and scientific communities, and the general public. These activities encompass university programs and accreditation, continuing education, pre-university programs, and others related to engineering education.

Dr. Adibi is being recognized "for numerous contributions to the field of integrated nanophotonics, lab-on-chip sensing, and volume holography." A faculty member in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech since 2000, he also serves as the director of the Center for Bio and Environmental Sensing Technologies.

OSA was founded more than 90 years ago as the Optical Society of America and has evolved into a global enterprise serving a worldwide constituency. In recognition of its global reach and focus, since 2008, the Society has been known as OSA - the Optical Society. Its membership totals more than 16,000 individuals from over 100 countries.

COPE won this award after having discovered a universal technique to reduce the work function of a conductor for organic electronics. Using a polymer modifier containing simple aliphatic amine function groups to reduce the work function in a wide range of conductors, including noble metals such as gold (Au) and silver (Ag), conducting polymers, metal oxides, or graphene, air-stable low-work function electrodes were created. These polymers are inexpensive, environmentally friendly, and compatible with existing roll-to-roll mass production techniques. The method is applicable to organic electronic devices including organic solar cells, organic thin-film transistors, and organic light-emitting diodes.

Established in 2003, COPE is a premier national research and educational resource center that creates flexible organic photonic and electronic materials and devices that serve the information technology, telecommunications, energy, and defense sectors. The Center is currently led by Bernard Kippelen, a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech.

They, along with their Ph.D. advisor and ECE Associate Professor Maysam Ghovanloo, received the award for the paper entitled "Intraoral Tongue Drive System Demonstration." The Tongue Drive System (TDS) is a wireless and wearable assistive technology that allows individuals with severe physical disabilities access their environment via their voluntary tongue emotion. In this demonstration, the wireless operation of the intraoral Tongue Drive System (iTDS) was presented along with the TDS universal interface, interacting with both a computer and a smartphone (iPhone). By placing a small magnet at seven pre-defined command positions on the iTDS dental retainer, visitors were able to see the issued commands on the iPhone screen. The setup helped visitors understand how the TDS converts free tongue movements to user-defined commands, which could then be used to dial a phone number, play a game, or control other devices via the iPhone’s Wi-Fi interface.

Georgia Tech will be the host institution for IEEE BioCAS in 2015. For more information, contact Dr. Ghovanloo at 404-385-7048, mgh@gatech.edu.

With more than 300 students currently filling roles at GTRI, senior leadership created a new way to recognize, honor, and recruit talented students. In October, GTRI awarded $40,000 in scholarships to four students at Georgia Tech: Carlos Alas, a mechanical engineering major from Naples, Fla.; Victoria Falk, a chemical engineering major from Lilburn, Ga.; Joseph Luck, an electrical engineering major from Summerville, S.C.; and Bianca Palacio, an industrial engineering major from Ridgewood, N.J.

“We have about 300 students who are embedded in our research initiatives,” GTRI Director Bob McGrath said in a luncheon with the recipients Oct. 16. “You and these 300 other students are an investment in our future. We’re very excited about the future of our technical workforce.”

Already, Mr. Luck, an EE junior and an Army veteran with a background in electronic warfare, has been hired in the Electronic Systems (ELSYS) Laboratory at GTRI as a student assistant.

“Joe Luck comes to ELSYS with skills that can immediately help our programs, while giving him experience to broaden and strengthen his career.” said Joe Brooks, director of ELSYS. “We’re glad he’s come on board. We are confident he can make contributions to our research in a way I think senior leadership envisioned when the scholarship was created.”

The committee that selected the recipients was led by Human Resources Consultant Shatanese Reese, and included GTRI Deputy Director of Support Lisa Sills and GTRI Chief of Staff Tom Horton. Scholarship eligibility criteria were provided to the Georgia Tech Financial Aid Office, which reviewed their database of students and provided GTRI with potential scholarship candidates.

“These are incredibly gifted students, and I’m glad GTRI could be a part of their educational opportunity,” McGrath said.

Dr. Taylor teaches a course on feedback control systems and embedded design using the latest tools and technologies from Texas Instruments. These tools are the same ones used by practicing engineers in their jobs, which means that students are getting very valuable experience that will serve them well with future employers.

View the TI University Program video profile of Dr. Taylor and his course, ECE 4550–Control System Design.

Known as PIC Jackets–short for Panasonic Innovation Center-Jackets, the team was made up of students from Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), led by Fulbright scholar Adeel Yusuf, a computer engineering Ph.D. student who works with ECE Professor Vijay K. Madisetti. Joining Mr. Yusuf on the team were Jeffery Kuo, a senior computer engineering major, and Vince Li, a junior majoring in both computer engineering and mechanical engineering; both undergraduates are co-op students working at the Center this semester. The team was sponsored by Panasonic Automotive Systems of America (PASA) and mentored by Georgia Tech alumnus John Avery.

The SAE Convergence event featured 10 teams, including automotive original equipment manufacturers and Tier-1 suppliers, and was modeled after the Freescale Cup competition, which includes over 25,000 students, 9,500 teams, and 600 colleges and universities in 18 countries. The teams build, program, and race a model car around a track for speed, and the winning car is the one that completes the track in the fastest time without derailing.

This year, PIC Jackets was the only student team in the event, competing against professional engineers from the automotive industry and placing behind teams from Chrysler and Ford, respectively. Designing this autonomous car requires embedded software programming and basic circuit creation using Freescale parts included in the entry kit. Students then create motor control hardware and software to propel and steer their intelligent car, and they must also interface to a camera to navigate the car through the race course by following the guide line in the middle of the track.

The PIC Jackets began working on their car at the beginning of September and accelerated their efforts as the competition date drew closer. Mr. Kuo worked on coding and testing different mathematical concepts, including the final code, and Mr. Yusuf handled the mathematical modeling and optimization of the steering and speed of the car. Mr. Li was responsible for the test track and the mechanical aspects of the vehicle.

The team was not able to use the actual track until the day before the finals, so in practice runs the team innovated by sticking black tape over sheets of paper prior to the event. “Even after tireless efforts and careful mathematical calculations, we had to take the leap of faith to reach the podium,” said Mr. Yusuf. “As we were the only student team among the finalists, we are very proud of our finish in this competition.”

Mr. Panth is a Ph.D. student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech and is advised by Sung Kyu Lim. He has been working as an intern at Qualcomm in San Diego since May and will return to Georgia Tech at the end of the year. He is one of only seven interns from the entire corporation to receive this award in 2012.

Mr. Panth is a hardware/application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) intern on Qualcomm's monolithic 3D-IC project, focused on design methodologies. Since 2011, he has been an important contributor to the recently initiated corporate R&D monolithic 3D-IC project. In collaboration with CR&D engineers, Mr. Panth has developed an in-house 2D/3D floorplanning tool and a number of different plug-ins/scripts to enable the existing 2D tools to perform appropriate 3D-related tasks. This entire infrastructure enabled Qualcomm to obtain a working register transfer level-to-post-layout 3D-IC implementation flow for the first time. Additionally, he is currently using the Qualcomm 3D implementation flow to study the power/performance tradeoffs of monolithic 3D-IC designs using different test cases, including an internal modem design. Upon returning to Georgia Tech, he will continue his collaboration with the team to push thermal-aware and gate-level 3D-IC design methodologies.

“Shreepad is creative, articulate and has a truly exceptional work ethic,” said Kambiz Samadi, Mr. Panth's manager at Qualcomm. “He has a great research track record that includes nine publications in top-tier conferences and journals and was a key member of the team that designed and taped out the first 3D massively parallel processor with stacked memory at Georgia Tech [whose work was published and presented at ISSCC 2012].”

The title of Mr. Cook's work is "Inkjet-Printed Millimeter-Wave Antennas and Sensors for Smart Skin Applications." Printing is a century-old technology that has allowed for the mass re-production of patterns. By replacing the standard colored inks in printers with custom in-house electronic inks developed in Dr. Tentzeris' research group, wires, sensors, transistors, and antennas can be printed onto a wide variety of substrates such as paper. This technology allows for a breakthrough in manufacturing "smart skins," which are large printed wallpapers of cognitive sensors. These smart skins can sense strains or cracks on bridges, toxic gases in buildings, or the shelf-life of produce in grocery stores at a cost which isn't much higher than printing newspapers roll-to-roll.

In addition to a monetary award, Mr. Cook's achievement will be recognized in an upcoming issue of IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Magazine. Before pursuing his Ph.D. at Georgia Tech, he received his B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in 2010 and his M.A.Sc. in electrical engineering from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia in 2011.

Dr. Williams joined Georgia Tech in 1989 as an assistant professor in ECE. He most recently served as the School’s interim chair from July 2011-August 2012 and as its associate chair for undergraduate affairs from 2003-2011. He has also served on Georgia Tech’s Executive Board, chaired the International Plan Committee, and been Georgia Tech’s advocate to the University System of Georgia’s Faculty Council.

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

“I’d personally like to thank Doug for agreeing to take on this important responsibility for the School of ECE,” said Steven W. McLaughlin, professor and Steve W. Chaddick School Chair. “Please join me in lending your support to him as he assumes this new role and in thanking Joe Hughes for his years of dedicated service in this position.”

As the director of the Laboratory of Computational Computer Vision, Dr. Yezzi has over 20 years of research experience in image processing, computer vision, and shape optimization using geometric partial differential equations. Applications of his research group's work include medical imaging, 3D surface reconstruction, and visual tracking. An active industrial consultant, Dr. Yezzi recently formed Vintinura Imaging, Inc., a startup company that is being hosted by ATDC/VentureLab and is focused on image analysis solutions, particularly those connected with shape detection, tracking, and optimization. He is the author of almost 200 peer-reviewed publications and holds a patent for user-interactive 3D medical image MRI segmentation which has been used within General Electric's MRI image analysis package for the past 10 years.

A strong proponent of international education opportunities, Dr. Yezzi has spent the last five years fostering international relationships between Georgia Tech and top Italian engineering universities. He has been the director of the dual master's degree program between Georgia Tech and Politecnico di Torino (PdT) since 2008. He has also been instrumental in developing joint Ph.D. programs between Georgia Tech and both PdT and Politecnico di Milano that were recently approved by the University System of Georgia Board of Regents. 

A professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech since 1989, Dr. Habetler has been an active IEEE volunteer for more than 20 years with both the IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS) and IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS).  He has served as an IEEE-PELS officer at the local Atlanta chapter level and advanced to top IEEE-PELS administrative officer roles as president, vice president, and secretary for the Society as a whole. He has also served as chair of major IEEE-PELS committees, including his current role as chair of the strategic planning committee With IEEE-IAS, Dr. Habetler has served as the chair of one of its technical committees and has won several IEEE-IAS best paper awards. He has also been involved as general chair and technical program chair for several IEEE-PELS and IAS conferences and workshops.

After being elected to the IEEE Board as Division II Director, Dr. Habetler became more involved with other areas of the Institute. He has served as IEEE member recruitment chair, a technical area representative on the Member and Geographic Activities Board, and is currently serving on the IEEE-USA Board of Directors.

Dr. Qureshi was chosen for the Intel award based on his proposed project entitled “Enabling Scalable, Energy-Efficient, Reliable Memory Systems for Many-Core Era.” His work will address four challenges, or "walls," that will determine or limit the effectiveness of future memory systems:

• the "capacity wall," arising from the difficulty in scaling DRAM (Dynamic, Random-Access Memory) technology to small feature sizes; 

• the "bandwidth wall, " arising from the pin limitation of current processor-memory interfaces;

• the "power wall," caused by the increased proportion of energy consumption in memory systems; and 

• the "reliability wall," caused by the increasing number of failure modes and device variability. 

Dr. Qureshi will also look at exploiting the emerging technologies and architecting solutions that leverage the unique properties of novel memories to provide an efficient, scalable, and reliable memory system. Some recent solutions that he has proposed for the challenges include Phase-Change Memory (PCM)-based memory systems, latency-optimized DRAM cache architectures, and low-cost memory reliability.

Dr. Qureshi was also awarded a NetApp Faculty Fellowship for System Architectures for Storage Class Memories. He will explore how to incorporate SCM (Storage Class Memory) technologies into memory hierarchy, with his plans focusing on PCM (Phase-Change Memory) in particular and on creating both hardware and software solutions.

This work will explore what sort of hints a program can give to a system and how to express them, and Dr. Qureshi intends to leverage some of his previous work to discover what a practical system would look like. The work under this fellowship is a specific sub-project under the theme of the larger research objective that he received from Intel.

Mr. Chen presented his work entitled "Estimation of Guided Wave Scattering Matrices from Spatially Distributed Transducer Arrays," which illustrates how to estimate far-field scattering behavior of elastic waves from damage in plate-like structures using very sparse measurements.

A Ph.D. student in the Quantitative Ultrasonic Evaluation, Sensing, and Testing Laboratory, he is co-advised by ECE Professor of the Practice Thomas E. Michaels and ECE Professor Jennifer E. Michaels who were both co-authors on the paper. Mr. Chen's work on the poster was motivated by a recently completed Air Force Research Laboratory project on understanding and exploiting the effects of stress on ultrasonic guided waves as applied to in situ monitoring of structural integrity. He will continue this work under a recently awarded fellowship from the American Society for Nondestructive Testing.

In addition to Mr. Chen's award, students from Laurence Jacobs' research group received second and third places in the poster competition. Dr. Jacobs is a professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Engineering.

The ARCS Scholars Awards recognize outstanding doctoral students who have records of past achievement and who show exceptional promise of making a significant contribution to the worldwide advancement of science and technology.

The research performed by Greg Droge and Carol Young is in the general area of robotics and unmanned systems, and they are advised by ECE Professor Magnus Egerstedt and ECE Assistant Professor Fumin Zhang, respectively.  Mr. Droge works on distributed decision making, with a focus on controlling modular robots, and has been a part of Dr. Egerstedt's group, the Georgia Robotics and Intelligent Systems Lab, for three years. Ms. Young is involved in making unmanned systems trustworthy to be partnering with humans and has been a part of Dr. Zhang's group, the Lab for Autonomous Mobile Networks, for a year. 

Ms. Olubanjo first worked with the GT-Bionics Lab under the supervision of ECE Associate Professor Maysam Ghovanloo as a SURE Program Fellow in 2010 and then rejoined his group as a Ph.D. student earlier this summer. She now works on a wireless and wearable technology that can help patients to comply with taking their prescription medications as directed by their doctors.

Mr. Lochner is advised by ECE Professor Russ Dupuis and does research in the Center for Compound Semiconductors focused on high-efficiency and high-frequency electronics and ultraviolet laser diodes for bioagent detection. Mr. Lochner started as an M.S. student in Dr. Dupuis' group in 2007 and will complete his Ph.D. this year.

After graduating from Georgia Tech with his Ph.D. in ECE in 2003, Dr. Bakir worked as a research engineer in the Microelectronics Research Center/Nanotechnology Research Center until 2010 and then joined the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering as an associate professor. He also serves as the associate director of the Interconnect and Packaging Center, and he leads the 3D Integrated Systems Group, consisting of seven Ph.D. students who explore the design, fabrication, and characterization of 3D electronic systems and advanced interconnect networks.

Dr. Bakir's specific research and educational interests focus on 3D electronic system integration, advanced cooling and power delivery for 3D systems, biosensors and their integration with CMOS circuitry, and nanofabrication technology. The editor of the book, Integrated Interconnect Technologies for 3D Nanoelectronic Systems, he is the author or co-author of more than 70 refereed journal and conference publications, five book chapters, 12 U.S. patents, and multiple invited presentations.

Dr. Bakir has received numerous awards and honors at this early stage of his career. Most recently, he received the 2012 DARPA Young Faculty Award and the 2011 IEEE Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technology Society Outstanding Young Engineer Award. He is also an invited participant to the 2012 National Academy of Engineering Frontiers in Engineering Symposium, which is taking place September 13-15 at the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Mich.

Dr. Howard started working at Georgia Tech in 2005, where she serves as the director of Human-Automation Systems Lab in ECE and as the advisor of eight Ph.D. students and two M.S. thesis students. In addition, Dr. Howard serves as the chair of the Institute's multidisciplinary robotics Ph.D. program.

Her area of research is centered around the concept of humanized intelligence, the process of embedding human cognitive ability into the control path of autonomous systems. Dr. Howard's work has resulted in over 100 peer-reviewed publications about projects ranging from scientific rover navigation in glacier environments to assistive robots for the home. Some new research directions include robotic applications for child therapy and rehabilitation, tele-presence for persons with visual impairments, haptic and wearable device interfaces, behavior modeling for diagnosis and intervention, and medical and health care mobile apps.

To date, Dr. Howard's work has been highlighted through a number of awards, articles, and televised interviews and programs, including USA Today, TIME Magazine, CNN, and American Public Television. Her recent awards include the 2008 Georgia Tech Faculty Woman of Distinction Award, the 2008 ECE Outreach Award, and the 2009 Janice A. Lumpkin Educator of the Year Award, given by the National Society of Black Engineers.

A professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Dr. Tentzeris and Mr. Vyas, his Ph.D. student, were chosen for this award in the category of future IT/emerging technologies for their work in "Biodegradable, Energy Harvesting Sensors for Structural Health Monitoring." Their research in this area focuses on the use of ambient energy harvesting technologies and clean organic materials to design and fabricate battery-less, biodegradable sensors. The sensors are ideal for use in detecting strains/cracks in buildings, as well as in agricultural monitoring, item tracking logistics, and healthcare applications. This work is the first effort of its kind, demonstrating ambient energy harvesting that is broadband and that can detect energy sources up to five miles or more away.

In the LINCR program brochure over 60 neuro-related groups on campus were identified by the Neuroscience Club (GTNeuro) to help students find faculty with shared interests. “I have been at Georgia Tech in the Laboratory for Neuroengineering for 10 years” says Dr. Steve Potter, Director of the Laboratory for Neuroengineering “and I am sad to say that I don’t know half of these other neuro-faculty. This GT-FIRE proposal is a first step in trying to unify all of Tech’s Neuro-groups, which could certainly transform this campus into one sought after and recognized world-wide for its unique technology-driven approach to Neuroscience and Neuroengineering.”

This year the program spans 13 weeks. LINCR fellows work full time between their two respective laboratories and attend workshops hosted by GT faculty that cover presentations, data analysis, literature review, research techniques, scientific reasoning and bioethics. The uniqueness of this program stems from empowering undergraduates to be the “linkers” of these disparate groups on campus. Students who participate in the program initiate collaborations between two labs, are assigned graduate and faculty mentors, and produce pilot figures for use with grant applications to carry their projects out into the future. In completing these assignments these undergraduates find other faculty, organizations, foundations, and companies that may take interest in their research and seek out future grant opportunities for their Principle Investigators.

This year, three fellows and six laboratories are collaborating. Connor Crowley, a rising 3^rd year biochemistry major who is working with Michelle LaPlaca, Ph.D. (BME) and Facundo Fernandez, Ph.D. (Chemistry and Biochemistry), is investigating the effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Candace Law, a rising 3^rd year BME major, has connected the labs of Steve Potter, Ph.D. (BME) and Christine Payne, Ph.D. (Chemistry and Biochemistry) on a project that looks into the use of nanoparticles for drug delivery to brain. Christopher Pace, a rising 3^rd year electrical engineering major, is working between Maysam Ghovanloo, Ph.D, (ECE) and Garrett Stanley, Ph.D (BME), using electrical brain stimulation to gain a better understanding of brain function and the utility of electrical stimulators in the brain.

LINCR is exciting because it is an undergraduate initiative that can be applied to any university with any focus.  To support, improve, and study the effectiveness of the program LINCR Administrators will be teaming up with BME’s Dr. Barbara Fasse to apply for future NIH/NSF funding. However, for the immediate future GTNeuro looks to the Georgia Tech community to fund and support the program for one more summer. The goal is to raise another $40,000. Dr. Ravi Bellamkonda, Georgia Tech’s Vice President of Research has already shown his support by making a significant contribution.  

In conclusion to this summer’s program, GTNeuro will host the LINCR Closing Symposium featuring the LINCR fellows. Keynote speakers include Bill Todd the former CEO of the Georgia Cancer Coalition and leader in the creation of the Georgia Tech-Emory BME partnership, Colin Potts the Georgia Tech Provost of Undergraduate Education, and Ross Mason a Georgia Tech Alumni and founder of the Healthcare Institute for Neurorecovery and Innovation. The event will be held at the Academy of Medicine, August 10^th 11:00am-3:00pm as a forum for the Neuro community at Tech to create and share innovative ideas. Lunch will be provided! Students, faculty, and advisors are all invited.

For more information on how you can support LINCR Program, please contact Anish Joseph (ajoseph11@gatech.edu) or Jim Schwoebel (jim.schwoebel@gatech.edu).

This meeting is the foremost global business gathering in Asia and provides a unique platform for 1,500 leaders from business, government, media, academia, and civil society to discuss the leading actors and drivers of growth. Under the theme, Creating the Future Economy, this year’s program will focus on how to ensure that the right values, incentives, and models are in place to deliver the best possible outcomes for global prosperity, national competitiveness, and entrepreneurial growth for future generations.

As a Young Scientists participant, Dr. Ghovanloo will join 40-50 scientists under the age of 40 who represent a wide range of disciplines and come from all regions of the world. They will contribute their scientific and engineering insights and knowledge–along with those provided by the other communities of the Forum, including Technology Pioneers, Social Entrepreneurs, Young Global Leaders, and Global Shapers–to address four sub-themes:

• Rethinking traditional markets and existing value chains
• Rewarding entrepreneurial solutions to societal challenges
• Reinventing institutions and industries through innovative models
• Recognizing the new frontiers of science and technology

A member of the Georgia Tech faculty since 2007, Dr. Ghovanloo is an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). A rising leader in brain-machine interfaces, biosensors, implantable neuroprostheses, and neural engineering, he has initiated an exceptionally strong research program at Georgia Tech through the GT-Bionics Lab. Two projects in particular–the Tongue Drive System and the MagneTrace sensor necklace–have brought much national and international acclaim to his group, ECE, and Georgia Tech.

This course investigates how to make mobile robots move in effective, safe, and predictable ways. The basic tool for achieving these actions is “control theory,” which deals with how dynamical systems–systems whose behaviors change over time–can be effectively influenced. With mobile robots as the target application, the course will cover the following tasks: (1) how to make teams of wheeled ground robots avoid collisions while reaching target locations;  (2) how to make aerial, quadrotor robots follow paths in the presence of severe disturbances such as wind and faulty or missing GPS readings; and (3) how to make bipedal, humanoid robots walk. Upon completion of this course, students will receive a Certificate of Completion from the Georgia Tech Center for 21^st Century Universities.

Last month, Georgia Tech signed an agreement with Coursera to put their web-based courses online and create new opportunities in the classroom. Dr. Egerstedt said that the Georgia Tech Coursera effort attracted him because he was both excited and curious about having an educational impact that stretches far beyond what he could accomplish in a traditional classroom.

Dr. Egerstedt was also motivated to participate in Coursera because he thinks higher education is increasingly moving toward using technology to make classes and faculty expertise more available to students and lifelong learners worldwide. And indeed, to date, Coursera has seen more than 680,000 students from 190 countries and more than 1.55 million course enrollments across its 43 courses.

“Coursera provides a platform that allows me to scale up my classes, so that they reach thousands of people–in essence having more students in one single class than what I have had in total over my entire career as an educator,” Dr. Egerstedt said. “I also wanted to see for myself what it would be like to teach a massively large-scale, on-line class.”

During the spring 2013 semester, he will also teach a course on campus that is very similar to Control of Mobile Robots. He hopes to leverage it in a way that allows him to do more hands-on experiments and projects in the classroom while some of the technical content is outsourced to the Coursera course that he is teaching that same term.

An award-winning teacher with honors from both Georgia Tech and Harvard University, Dr. Egerstedt has been on the ECE faculty since 2001 and is the director of the Georgia Robotics and Intelligent Systems Laboratory. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award.

In addition to Dr. Egerstedt’s course, Georgia Tech will offer Computational Photography, Computational Investing, Energy 101, and Fundamentals of Online Education: Planning and Education. The Institute plans to add more online courses across a range of disciplines to its portfolio with Coursera.

About Coursera
Coursera is on a mission to change the world by educating millions of people by offering classes from top universities and professors online for free. Coursera's comprehensive education platform combines mastery-based learning principles with video lectures, interactive content and a global community of peers, offering students from around the world a unique online learning experience. Coursera has partnered with top-tier universities to provide courses across a broad range of disciplines, including medicine, literature, history and computer science, among others. Coursera is backed by leading venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and New Enterprise Associates. For more information, visit Coursera.org.

Ms. Vera Lopez's paper entitled, "Hybrid Silicon-Organic Packaged Antenna Array at 60 and 80 GHz Using a Low-Cost Bonding Technique," was coauthored with her Ph.D. advisor John Papapolymerou, G. Ponchak of the NASA Glenn Research Center, and A. Akiba, S. Mitarai, and K. Ikeda of Sony Corporation.  Her work presents a hybrid silicon-organic packaged mm-wave antennas that is flip-chip bonded to a 400 µm thick silicon substrate through gold bumps and a non-conductive film (NCF) adhesive layer. Two different antennas were designed, at 60 and 80 GHz, respectively. It is demonstrated that the organic substrate can be successfully integrated into a package at mm-wave frequencies by securing it mechanically with the NCF layer. Both designs yielded over 15 percent bandwidth and greater than 10 dBi gain.

WECE won this award for its efforts in creating a community within ECE where women can seek academic support, participate in professional development activities, enjoy social events, and take part in community outreach activities with other organizations in ECE and throughout Georgia Tech. The group is also very active in outreach activities to female middle school and high school students through its work with FIRST LEGO League, the HOT Days @ Georgia Tech summer camp, and conducting school and campus tours. 

Established by a group of five women in 2004, WECE has grown to a membership of 316 women this past year.

After taking ECE 4550–Controls System Design, taught by Professor David Taylor, Messrs. Vaziri and Jain began the work that led to their project that was selected for the TI contest. Their project report is entitled “Derivation, MATLAB Modeling, and TMS320C2000 Implementation of Recursive Linear Least Squares Parameter Identification Technique Specialized for Use with DC Motors.” The concepts presented in this report create the core functionality for two different products. This method can be run in real time for use in adaptive control, or it can be run once during a system commissioning process to ensure that a motor is behaving properly or to identify the unknown properties of a motor.

Mr. Jain will be presenting for the team at the contest, and we wish him much success!

IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters is a monthly journal that provides fast publication of original and significant contributions to all aspects of microwave/millimeter-wave technology. Emphasis is placed on devices, components, circuits, guided-wave structures, systems, and applications covering the frequency spectrum, including submillimeter-waves and infrared technologies.

Dr. Papapolymerou has been on the ECE faculty since 2001. He also serves on the IEEE TAB Periodicals Review and Advisory Committee, which monitors the timeliness, appropriateness, and quality of all IEEE society- and council-sponsored periodicals.

"Measuring a Champion" (all with runtimes of 5:34) may be viewed at the web sites for the National Science Foundation, Science 360: The Knowledge Network, & NBC Learn. Shorter versions of all of the videos will be broadcast during the 2012 Summer Olympics, which will be held in London July 27-August 12. Lesson plans for K-12 teachers will be available online in August 2012.

The participants–from industry, academia, and government–were nominated by fellow engineers or organizations and chosen for their exceptional engineering research and technical contributions from approximately 300 applicants. The symposium will be held September 13-15 at the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Mich. and will examine serious games, vehicle electrification, climate engineering, and engineering materials for the bioengineering interface. 

Prior to joining the ECE faculty in 2010, Dr. Bakir was a research engineer in the Nanotechnology Research Center at Georgia Tech from 2003-2010. His research interests include 3D integrated circuits, sensor-CMOS integration, interconnect technologies, and nanoelectronics. He was also recently chosen for a 2012 DARPA Young Faculty Award (see related article).

This one-year fellowship is in support of his Ph.D. research on “Load-Enhanced Methods for Lamb Wave in situ Nondestructive Evaluation of Complex Components” and will begin in July 2012. He also won a travel grant from the Force and Motion Foundation that will enable him to present his research at the 39th Annual Review of Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation, which is being held this July in Denver, Colo.

A member of the Quantitative Ultrasonic Evaluation, Sensing, and Testing (QUEST) Laboratory, Mr. Chen is co-advised by ECE Professors Thomas Michaels and Jennifer Michaels. To date, his research has been supported by the Air Force Research Laboratory under a contract entitled “Understanding and Exploiting the Effects of Loading on Ultrasonic Sensing Systems for Structural Health Monitoring.” Thus far, Mr. Chen's work 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 subjected to changing loading conditions.

Drs. Bloch and Hong have been chosen for CETL's Class of 1969 Teaching Fellows Program, which is designed for untenured assistant professors who want to develop their full teaching potential. During the academic-year-long program, the Teaching Fellows explore various aspects of teaching and learning in weekly seminars, receive private assistance with teaching, and undertake a project to improve student learning in one of their courses. A member of the ECE faculty since 2009 and based at the Georgia Tech-Lorraine campus in Metz, France, Dr. Bloch specializes in communications and information theory, error-control coding, wireless communications, and physical-layer security. Dr. Hong has been on the ECE faculty since 2008 and specializes in high performance computing, multicore computer architecture, multi-processor synchronization, parallel and multi-threaded algorithms, and distributed computing.

Dr. Zhang will participate in the Class of 1969 Teaching Scholars Program, a theme-based initiative that brings together Georgia Tech faculty to investigate a particular teaching and learning topic. He is among the 10 faculty members across campus who will participate in this program this year which will focus on "Creating Authentic Assignments and Activities that Improve Students' Learning and Communication Skills." Dr. Zhang has been on the ECE faculty since 2007, and his research and educational interests include mobile sensor networks, underwater robotics, and motion planning in complex environments.

The conference, which was sponsored by IEEE and the Japan Society of Applied Physics, was held in Austin, Tex. from May 30-June 1. Mr. Pan was honored for his paper entitled "System-Level Optimization and Benchmarking of Graphene pn Junction Logic System Based on Empirical CPI Model," which he coauthored with his Ph.D. advisor, Azad Naeemi, who is an assistant professor in ECE.

Mr. Pan's paper presents an empirical cycle-per-instruction (CPI) model for microprocessors to quantify the throughput of a chip integrating emerging transistor and interconnect technologies without the detailed design of a full microprocessor. This CPI model along with a host of generic models for critical path delay, power dissipation, and multilevel interconnect networks provide a powerful methodology for device/architecture co-optimization. Graphene pn junction devices are taken as a case-study for co-optimizing device level parameters (e.g., device geometry and dimensions) and system-level parameters (e.g., number and complexity of cores). It is demonstrated that optimal system-level parameters strongly depend on the choice of technology, and technology/system co-optimization is essential for benchmarking the potential performance of emerging post-CMOS switches.

Mr. Stargel is the vice president of Global Nonwovens at Kimberly-Clark Corporation. In his role, he oversees the development, commercialization, and supply of materials used to support Kimberly-Clark's branded personal health and hygiene products. In addition to his corporate responsibilities, Mr. Stargel is on the board of the Peachtree Regional FIRST Robotics Division, the finance committee for the Georgia Council of Economics Education, and the advisory boards for the Georgia Tech Women in Engineering program and the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech. He is also on the executive committee of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association. He is married to Jocelyn (Cooper) Stargel, who is also a graduate of Georgia Tech.

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.

Advised by ECE Professor Abhijit Chatterjee, Mr. Banerjee works in the area of design and testing of digitally assisted adaptive analog/RF circuits and systems. The focus of his research is to design and test digitally assisted adaptive analog/RF circuits and systems for process variation tolerant, low power, and reliable operation which aims to leverage digital correction and calibration techniques to improve analog and RF performance. This technology will enable the development of ultra-low power, intelligent, and flexible RF communication systems.

WECE won this award for their high level of activity and engagement with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Georgia Tech. Established in 2004 by a group of five women students, WECE has created a community within the School where women–from undergraduates to Ph.D. students–can seek friendship, support, and advice regarding their academic, professional, and personal development.

A sampling of their events includes social activities such as their annual Halloween Party, Holiday Party (co-hosted with Eta Kappa Nu and IEEE), and Bowling Party; outreach events such as the FIRST LEGO League Tournament, Family Weekend, Introduce a Girl to Engineering, and Team Buzz and Tech Beautification Day; information sessions with different companies; and professional and academic workshops focused on dressing for success, career fair and resume preparation, applying for graduate school, and topical seminars given by ECE faculty members.

Congratulations to WECE for having such a successful year and for receiving this award!

In 2012, Applied Optics is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and as part of that celebration, the OSA is recognizing their 50 most prolific authors in the history of that journal.  Dr. Gaylord is the journal's 11th most prolific author, with 67 papers that have been cited 1,128 times.

To view Dr. Gaylord's list of articles, please visit http://www.opticsinfobase.org/ao/journal/ao/anniversary/50mostpublished.cfm.

The purpose of this award is to recognize outstanding educators from among the untenured junior faculty at the assistant professor level from the Schools of Aerospace Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering, as well as the College of Computing. Award recipients are selected for extraordinary effectiveness in classroom teaching, educational innovations, inspiration transmitted to students, direct impact and involvement with students, and impact on the postgraduate success of students.

Dr. Zhang has been on the ECE faculty since 2006 and specializes in digital signal processing and systems and controls.

Mr. Pan’s and Dr. Naeemi’s paper–entitled "Device- and System-Level Performance Modeling for Graphene P-N Junction Logic"–presents the first comprehensive performance modeling and assessment at the device-, circuit-, and system-levels for graphene pn junction switches and offers important insights into the limits and opportunities of this emerging technology.

As CMOS scaling approaches its fundamental limits, it is critical to develop novel device technologies to augment or even replace the conventional Si CMOS logic. Graphene with its unique physical and electrical properties is considered a prominent candidate for this purpose. However, graphene is a naturally gapless material and virtually all efforts in opening a gap in its bandstructure negatively affect its excellent electron transport properties. Graphene pn junction devices rely on angular dependent electron transport at the pn junctions in graphene and do not need a bandgap to operate as a switch.

Their paper, entitled "A Self-Testable SiGe LNA and Built-in-Self-Test Methodology for Multiple Performance Specifications of RF Amplifiers," presents a new approach for testing RF low-noise amplifier (LNA) circuits by using no external stimulus. Using this new method provides the capability for testing multiple circuit parameters and takes advantage of existing resources in typical RF receiver circuits. The paper combines both simulation and experimental results to prove that such an approach is indeed possible and provides a path towards the implementation of self-healing RF systems. 

Dr. Mooney’s paper entitled “Classification-based Improvement of Application Robustness and Quality of Service in Probabilistic Computer Systems” is based on collaboration among the coauthors who represent TU Dortmund (Germany), Nanyang Technical University (Singapore), Georgia Tech, and Rice University. Future semiconductors no longer guarantee permanent deterministic operation and are expected to show probabilistic behavior due to lowered voltages and shrinking structures. However, instructions handling control flow or pointers still require determinism. This paper is the first to identify these instructions and apply a transient error classification to probabilistic circuits considering voltage distributions, ensuring that probabilistic effects only affect unreliable operations that accept a certain level of impreciseness. To evaluate, this team analyzed the robustness and quality-of-service of an H.264 video decoder and mapped unreliable arithmetic operations onto probabilistic components of an ARM-based simulator, while remaining operations used deterministic components.

Dr. Mooney’s coauthors on this paper are Andreas Heinig (TUD), Florian Schmoll (TUD), Peter Marwedel (TUD), Krishna Palem (Rice and NTU), and Michael Engel (TUD). Dr. Mooney took part in this work while he was a visiting professor at the Institute of Sustainable and Applied Infodynamics at NTU Singapore.

Bonnie Ferri – Class of 1934 Outstanding Use of Innovative Education Technology Award

Shyh-Chiang Shen – Senior Faculty Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award

David S. Webb – Outstanding Management in Action Award

G. Tong Zhou – Steven A. Denning Faculty Award for Global Engagement

Five ECE students were among the top award winners at the annual Georgia Tech Student Honors Day, held on April 19 at the Georgia Tech Student Center Ballroom.

Sean Austen McGee – Tau Beta Pi Engineering Cup

The Tau Beta Pi Engineering Cup is awarded to the top engineering student at Georgia Tech by the Georgia Alpha Chapter of the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society

Kyle Coogan and Samir Siddiqui – James G. and Mary G. Wohlford Scholarships

These scholarships recognize senior co-ops who have excelled both academically and on their co-op jobs and who have made significant contributions to the community.

Clark Adam Kerr and Jason Robert McElrath – Henry Ford II Scholar Awards

These awards are given to engineering students who have the best academic records at the end of the third year of undergraduate study

A professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, Dr. Papapolymerou is being recognized for his paper entitled "A Lightweight Organic X-Band Active Receiving Phased Array with Integrated SiGe Amplifiers and Phase Shifters," which was published in volume 59, number 1, pp. 100-109 of the transactions. Sponsored by NASA, the work described in this paper focuses on the development of a lightweight, low cost, conformal, and compact X-band phased array for ice/snow measurements that are critical for weather forecasting and environmental analysis. This technology can also be used for weather radars and in a variety of wireless communication and sensor systems at other frequencies, such as high speed wireless with Gbps transmission rates.

Dr. Papapolymerou’s coauthors on the paper were his Ph.D. student Chad Patterson, who is co-advised by College of Engineering Dean Gary May; Ana Yepes, an M.S. graduate of Dr. Papapolymerou’s group who is now working at Intel; Swapan Bhattacharya, a former postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Papapolymerou’s group who is now a senior research scientist in the School of Physics at Georgia Tech; John Cressler, the Ken Byers Professor in ECE; Tushar Thrivikraman, a Ph.D. graduate of John Cressler’s group who is now working at NASA-JPL; and Sean Begley, a research engineer in GTRI.   

Peter Song, a graduate student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech who works in John Cressler's research group, was selected for the NSTRF Class of 2012. Mr. Song's proposal was entitled "High-Frequency Silicon-Germanium MMIC Development for Next-Generation Space-based Radars," 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 (SWaP).

Dr. Mukhopadhyay’s research project is entitled “OROEB: On-Line Real-Time Optimal Energy Balancing for Self-Powered Environment Adaptive Sensor Node.” The objective of this work is to design a self-powered, environment-adaptive sensor node that maintains a target Quality-of-Service (QoS) in a time-varying environment. A wireless image sensor node will be designed that incorporates a CMOS imager, digital signal processing unit, and RF transreceiver and is powered using energy harvested from the environment. The circuit innovations for the individual components will be coupled with system design and on-line real-time control principles to approach this highly challenging goal of developing a self-powered image sensor node. The self-powered sensor node and reliable energy-efficient image transmission principles created in this work will allow deployment of image sensors and communication networks to cyber-physical systems in various military as well as civilian applications.

An assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, Dr. Mukhopadhyay has been on the faculty since 2007 and specializes in VLSI systems and digital design, electronic design and applications, and microsystems.

Student Awards

Staff Awards

Faculty Awards

In addition, four ECE staff members who received specialized training certifications were also recognized at this event, as were eight graduate teaching assistants who were also honored at the annual ECE Spring Picnic, sponsored by Eta Kappa Nu.

Georgia Tech Staff Training Certifications

Recognition of Outstanding ECE Graduate Teaching Assistant Awards

David V. Anderson – promotion to professor

W. Alan Doolittle – promotion to professor

Maysam Ghovanloo – tenure

Ayanna Howard – promotion to professor

Linda S. Milor – promotion to professor

Saibal Mukhopadhyay – promotion to associate professor with tenure

George F. Riley – promotion to professor

Gabriel A. Rincon-Mora – promotion to professor

“The actions of granting promotion and tenure are very carefully considered in ECE and at Georgia Tech,” said Interim ECE School Chair Douglas B. Williams. “These faculty members have worked very hard to reach these milestones in their careers and deserve not only our congratulations, but also many thanks for what they contribute to our research and educational programs and to the profession as a whole.”

In his work, Mr. Costley seeks to design the infrastructure necessary to support large-scale green electricity power network integration. His current focus is to develop behaviors that each member of the power system (homes, buildings, generators, etc.) should follow to ensure that the whole system is secure and reliable since the problem of monitoring and control from a central location, as is done today, is becoming overwhelming.

Since 1951, Nobel Laureates in chemistry, physics, and physiology/medicine convene annually to have open and informal meetings with doctoral students and young researchers. The Laureates lecture on specific topics and then participate in less formal, small group discussions with the students and researchers. The U.S. delegation attending this meeting consists of U.S. doctoral students whose current research is funded by either NSF or the U.S. Department of Energy or by Mars, Inc. (which sponsors students under separate eligibility criteria) or who attend an Oak Ridge Associated Universities institution. 

Mr. Atabaki was chosen for the Sigma Xi Doctoral Thesis Award for his thesis entitled “Reconfigurable Silicon Photonic Devices for Optical Signal Processing.” His work focuses on the fundamental challenges for low power and ultra-fast optical signal processing devices on CMOS-compatible platforms for future interconnect and RF-photonics applications. The reconfiguration technology developed in this work enables low power, low loss, and ultra-fast reconfiguration of ultra-compact photonic devices on a single platform for the first time. Additionally, several novel devices are demonstrated in this thesis that result in orders of magnitude reduction of power consumption of nonlinear optical functionalities for practical chip-scale signal processing applications. Mr. Atabaki conducted his Ph.D. research under the direction of Ali Adibi and is now a postdoctoral fellow in the Photonics Research Group.

Danny Duong received the Sigma Xi Best Master's Thesis Award for his thesis entitled “The Complex Dielectric Properties of Aqueous Ammonia from 2 GHz-8.5 GHz in Support of the NASA Juno Mission.” His work will allow the Juno Microwave Radiometer (Juno-MWR) to better measure the structure of deep atmospheric liquid clouds when the spacecraft arrives at Jupiter and begins sending back data to Earth in 2016.  Advised by Paul Steffes, Mr. Duong graduated in December 2011 with his master's degree and now works with MPR Associates, Inc. in Alexandria, Va.

Signatories representing the French funding entities were Jean-Luc Bohl, President of the Metz Metropole, Jean-Yves Le Déaut, Vice President of the Lorraine Regional Council, and François Lavergne, Vice President of the Department of the Moselle. Also present were Dominique Gros, Mayor of Metz, Yves Berthelot, President of Georgia Tech-Lorraine, Abdallah Ougazzaden, Director of Georgia Tech-Lorraine, and Director of the Georgia Tech-CNRS Unité Mixte Internationale 2958 Laboratory, and Bernard Kippelen, Professor of Electrical and  Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech who represented Georgia Tech-Global.

At this meeting, Dr. Kippelen was officially confirmed as the President of the newly established Lafayette Institute. Drs. Berthelot and Ougazzaden will serve as the Institute’s Vice Presidents.

The Lafayette Institute will be housed in a newly constructed 20,000-square-foot building on the Georgia Tech-Lorraine campus, which will include a 5,000-square-foot clean room, fully equipped with state-of-the-art semiconductor growth capabilities. Georgia Tech is to provide support from its Enterprise Innovation Institute, the university’s business and economic development arm, which aims to help enterprises use science, technology and innovation to improve their competitiveness. It also will share its expertise from the Nanotechnology Research Center.

The Lafayette Institute will focus on the development of compound and organic semiconductors for technologies at the intersection of materials, optics, photonics, electronics and nanotechnology.  These new technologies will have applications in the energy sector, new display technologies, and sensors and medical technology.

“I am honored by the trust that the stakeholders have placed in me and I am looking forward to working with the team of the Lafayette Institute. This project is a milestone in the long and fruitful partnership between the Region Lorraine, Georgia Tech, and the State of Georgia and a new chapter in US-French collaboration in higher education and innovation,” said Dr. Kippelen.  

G. P. “Bud” Peterson, president of Georgia Tech, said that the institute fit perfectly with the university’s recently published strategic plan calling for “global engagement.”

Georgia Tech Vice Provost for International Initiatives Steven McLaughlin said that the Lafayette Institute represents a very big step forward not only for
Georgia Tech Lorraine, but for Georgia Tech as whole. "Lafayette opens up
tremendous opportunities for researchers, scientists, small and large
companies in Europe, and for Georgia Tech faculty and researchers to engage
and collaborate in new ways in Metz," said Dr. McLaughlin, who serves as president of Georgia Tech Global, Inc. "We are very grateful to all of our
partners for launching the Lafayette Institute and look forward to great
successes."

The Lafayette Institute was named after the Marquis de Lafayette, who decided to join the American Revolution after a historic meeting held in Metz, the capital of the Lorraine region.

Thursday,March 15, 11 am-12 noon, Van Leer Auditorium

Thursday,March 15, 5 pm-6 pm, Architecture Auditorium

Wednesday,March 28, 3 pm-4 pm, Van Leer Auditorium

Tuesday,April 3, 5 pm-6 pm, Van Leer Auditorium

Their paper, "Are Power Planes Necessary for High Speed Signaling?," took top honors in the Power and RF Design category. Most electronic packages and printed circuit boards today contain power planes which cause resonances and excessive jitter in a high speed signaling environment. The bad effects of power planes are often mitigated using decoupling capacitors. For the first time, this paper shows the use of transmission lines to supply power with minimum power supply noise and jitter. The findings of this paper, which resulted from Dr. Huh's Ph.D. thesis, could have far reaching consequences in real world applications. These results provide a path towards using fewer layers for signaling, less capacitors, and a possibility for simplifying the design process, leading to low cost solutions.

Amongthe six finalists are two teams with ECE students. They include:

Stylii: An extraordinarily precise andpressure-sensitive capacitive stylus. The team is made up of Matthew Stoddard,an industrial design major from Clarksville, Tenn., and Christopher Vollo, an electricalengineering major from Alpharetta, Ga. Watchtheir interview with GPB.

DEfT Pad: A touchscreen device thatgives guitarists the functionality of a distortion panel. The team is made upof David Burke, a computer engineering major from Canton, Ga., and electricalengineering majors Bradley Keller of Gainesville, Ga.; Sarosh Ali Shahbuddin ofRock Hill, S.C.; Michael Barrington Stone of Augusta, Ga.; and JarredVallbracht of Covington, Ga. Watchtheir interview with GPB.

Wewish our students the very best of luck on Tuesday. Go Jackets!

An assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Georgia Tech, Dr. Hong was honored for his paper, "Improving Prediction Accuracy of Protein-DNA Docking with GPU Computing." He shares this award with two coauthors–Jiadong Wu, his Ph.D. student, and Jun-tao Guo, a colleague from the Department of Bioinformatics and Biomedicine at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Protein-DNA docking represents one of the most challenging problems in structural bioinformatics. Knowledge of how proteins interact with DNA is critical for understanding many key biological processes and for structure-based drug design. This paper describes a high performance computing method that Dr. Hong and his team have developed to tackle the protein-DNA docking problem using a GPU cluster. This protein-DNA docking algorithm integrates Monte-Carlo simulation and a simulated annealing method and has achieved 10.4 TFLOPS of sustained performance using 128 GPU cards, which represents 4× speed up over a traditional cluster with 1000 CPU cores. Such improved computation capability accelerates the conformational space sampling for the docking algorithm and increases the chance of finding near-native protein-DNA structures.

Dr. Rontani's advisors were David Citrin (ECE at Georgia Tech and Georgia Tech-Lorraine) and Marc Sciamanna (Supélec). His research consisted of studying complex behaviors emerging in optoelectronic components. Chaotic behaviors exhibit noise-like features, thus making them highly desirable for private communications at the physical layer of networks, and also for the generation of random numbers used in various fields, such as computer simulations or the generation of binary keys for cryptographic applications.

After graduation, Dr. Rontani began work as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Physics at Duke University.

Honored specifically for his significant and pioneering work in telecommunications spanning 27 years, Dr. Akyildiz was presented with this award by the president of the Republic of Turkey Abdullah Gül on December 5 at Cankaya Palace, which is the president's home in city of Ankara.

Dr. Akyildiz has been on the Georgia Tech faculty since 1985 and has been on the faculty of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering since 1992. He is currentlythe Ken Byers Professor in Telecommunications and leads the Broadband Wireless Networking Laboratory.

TUBITAK is the leading research management and funding agency in Turkey and is a very close equivalent to the National Science Foundation in the U.S.  However, in addition to funding research projects, TUBITAK is also comprised of many different R&D institutes focused on various areas of engineering, sciences, and industrial management.

Matthieu R. Bloch

Gee-Kung Chang

Thomas M. Conte

Jeffrey A. Davis

Magnus Egerstedt

Faramarz Fekri

Hsien-Hsin Sean Lee

James H. McClellan

Saibal Mukhopadhyay

Yorai Wardi

Linda M. Wills

During fall 2010 and/or spring 2011, these faculty had a response rate of at least 85 percent to the Course-Instructor Opinion Survey and had teaching effectiveness scores of 4.8 in classes that were at least 40 students in size or scores of 4.9 in classes that were at least 15 students in size. To reward their commitment to teaching excellence, they will each receive a one-time, pre-tax award of $1,000, and they will be recognized on Celebrating Teaching Day on March 15.

A master's degree student in John Papapolymerou's research group, Mr. Chlieh works with CMOS Ultra-Wide-Band Active Baluns, an RF device that can convert a differential signal at the input to a single ended signal at the output. The advantage of active baluns compared to passive ones is that they provide some positive gain in order to compensate for any eventual loss, and CMOS offers the possibility of shrinking the size of a chip so that it can be used in a variety of applications. Some of these applications are connecting balanced devices such as television receivers, dipole antennas,or parallel wire transmission lines to unbalanced devices such as coaxial cables, coaxial transmission lines, or coaxial antenna systems.

The publication has a legacy of 60-plus years and is at the heart of the technical activities conducted by the IEEE Electron Devices Society (EDS). EDS began in 1952 as a committee of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE). With the merger in 1963 of IRE and the American Institute of Radio Engineers, EDS became a technical group under the newly formed IEEE. In 1976, EDS became a society of IEEE and now has about 11,000 members worldwide.

Effective January 1, 2012, Dr. Begovic became president-elect, a position that he will hold for two years. He will then serve two years as president and two years as past president. During his tenure in this role, Dr. Begovic will chair the IEEE PES governing board that directs the financial and administrative activities of the society.

A professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, Dr. Begovic has been heavily involved in IEEE PES technical committees for over 20 years. He has served as a working group chair and a member of numerous working groups in the Power Systems Relaying Committee and as a member and chair of the PES Emerging Technologies Coordinating Committee.

Dr. Begovic has also held various PES administrative positions, among them chair of the Atlanta chapter, which is the largest in the U.S.; chair of the Student Activities in Power Engineering Education Committee; secretary of the Meetings Department; chair of the Constitution and Bylaws Committee of the PES Governing Board; and as the Society's treasurer.

The new center willbe mainly supported by participating industry members for the first five-year period, including seed funding from the NSF. It will substantially impact theadvanced technology of optical wireless systems and applications for imaging,sensing, and communication networks. A joint effort with Pennsylvania StateUniversity, COWA will be led on the Georgia Tech side by Gee-Kung Chang,Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) Eminent Scholar and Byers Endowed Professor in OpticalNetworking at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). MohsenKavehrad, a chair professor in the Department ofElectrical Engineering, will lead the Center’s efforts at Penn State.

The goal of thecenter is to foster an innovative research environment driven by industrialneeds to develop leading edge, radio-over-fiber technologies for deliveringmulti-gigabit, multi-band wireless services over optical access networks with 100xmore capacity at higher bit rates and longer reach than current wirelesscommunications. Four ECE professors at Georgia Tech–Nikil S. Jayant, RaghupathySivakumar, Stephen E. Ralph, and John R. Barry–will work with Dr. Chang in thisnew center. Their research tasks will include developing integratedopto-electronics components with smart optical-wireless interfaces necessary tofacilitate collaborative functions and features among digital, RF, and opticalsystems.

Dr. Grijalva has been an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech since 2009. In his new role, he will foster the research enterprise in the area of energy conversion, including assembling faculty teams to compete for energy-related grants. Dr. Grijalva will also work with industry and with contacts in Washington, D.C. to facilitate research opportunities, policy, and impact in this area.

This committee monitors the timeliness, appropriateness, and quality of all IEEE society- and council-sponsored periodicals, with reviews of all periodicals taking place every five years. In addition to the committee chair, the group is comprised of chairs from the TAB periodicals, magazines, newsletters, and transactions committees, as well as up to seven additional members.

Dr. Papapolymerou has been on the faculty of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech since 2001, and since 2011, he has also served as the associate director for the Georgia Electronic Design Center.

Mr. Donado Morcillo was honored for his paper entitled "Design of Stripline Beam-Former Network Components for Low-Profile, Organic Phased Arrays in the X-Band." Sharing in this award were his co-authors and co-presenters, ECE Ph.D. student Chad Patterson and Chad's and Carlos' Ph.D. advisor, ECE Professor John Papapolymerou. 

The main objective of this NASA-sponsored research is to develop a lightweight and compact radar system that can be conformed to the skin of unmanned air or ground vehicles for fast and automated ice/snow surveying missions. The Best Student Paper Award was granted for the group's work toward providing a reliable, high-frequency packaging solution for the implementation of these radar systems on thin and flexible polymer materials.

A mark of great distinction, this award recognizes a chapter's service to their fellow students, school, university, and the surrounding community during 2010-11.The award will be formally presented at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association Annual Meeting in March 2012 at the University of Texas at Austin.

HKN is one of the largest honor societies in the country, with 173 active university chapters, a variety of committees, many active member volunteers, and thousands of student members. There are only five other chapters that have received the Outstanding Chapter Award seven years in a row.

"This is a tremendous achievement for our chapter of HKN, led by Viki Sherman and Alex DeFreese, during this time period and their advisor, Tom Gaylord," said Douglas B. Williams, professor and interim school chair for ECE. "Please join me in congratulating them on earning this award once again and for their hard work and dedication to making ECE and Georgia Tech a better place."

Included in the top 25 are papers published in the journal dating back to its establishment in 2001. Dr. Tentzeris' co-authors are Rushi Vyas, Vasileios Lakafosis, Hoseon Lee, Li Yang, and Anya Traille from Georgia Tech; Luca Roselli and Giulia Orecchini from the University of Perugia (Italy); and George Shaker from the University of Waterloo (Canada).

Georgia Tech’s electrical and computer engineering classesare taught and video-recorded at Georgia Tech’s state-of-the-art distance learningfacilities, giving the Intel students the flexibility to review lectures attheir convenience and as often as they wish.

The elective curriculum for the program includes three IntelCollege of Engineering developed courses taught by Intel faculty, which makesthe curriculum tailored for the company’s needs.

Intel and Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and ComputerEngineering have a long history of collaboration in research and education. 

“We're excited about this new partnership with Intel, andthe opportunity to grow the already significant number of Georgia Tech alumniat Intel,” said Douglas B. Williams, interim chair of Georgia Tech’s School ofElectrical and Computer Engineering.  “The opportunity to work withFab/Sort Manufacturing employees as Georgia Tech students is expected to leadto greater technical interaction and cross-fertilization.”

After a rigorous review process, select Intel College ofEngineering faculty members were approved by Georgia Tech as adjunct faculty.The College of Engineering faculty brings Intel technical expertise to courseswhile enriching and broadening the academic knowledge students’ gain throughGeorgia Tech’s master’s in electrical and computer engineering program.

“With a global workforce, the distance learning aspect ofthis three-year program is immensely attractive to all Intel employees byproviding the flexibility to take courses while managing their work and lifeneeds,” said Josh Walden, vice president and general manager of Fab/SortManufacturing.  Intel’s COE program currently offers its courses in adistance learning format for the benefit of FSM employees.