Alumni in Academia

EE Alumni Have Taken Academic Positions Worldwide

The Electrical Engineering department is making great strides in preparing the next generation of academic scholars. Twelve of our Ph.D. graduates have recently accepted the academic positions worldwide:

Dr. Shaolei Ren, Florida International University (Advisor, Prof. Mihaela van der Schaar)

ShaoleiRen Dr. Shaolei Ren received his PhD from UCLA in 2012. His research interest is in cloud computing, smart grid, social networking, and network economics. FloridaIntlUniv

Prof. van der Schaar recalls, "Shaolei is a very dedicated researcher, who has done excellent work in a variety of important research domains ranging from wireless communications, to cloud computing and smart grids. His research is unique because it deals with highly complex problems which he is able to analyze and solve in a rigorous and elegant manner. His diverse abilities, knowledge and interests are also highlighted by the fact that he was offered to be faculty in two departments - electrical engineering and computer science."

Dr. Shenheng Xu, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China (Advisor, Prof. Yahya Rahmat-Samii)

ShenhengXu Dr. Shenheng Xu received his PhD degree in 2009. His research interests include advanced reflector and reflectarray antenna designs, optimization techniques, and novel antenna theories and applications. TsinghuaUniversity

Prof. Rahmat-Samii recalls, "While at UCLA, Shenheng advanced the design technique for large spaceborne reflector antennas for future NASA remote sensing of hurricanes from geo-stationary orbit. He also developed a novel twin horn feed design for high rpm rotating antenna system for low orbit remote sensing applications. He was an outstanding and most pleasant student to work with. "

Dr. Rahul Singh, University of California, Los Angeles (Advisors, Profs. Elliott Brown and Warren Grundfest)

RahulSingh Dr. Rahul Singh received his PhD degree in 2005. He is a member of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center on Cancer Molecular Imaging Program Area. His research interests include ultrasound imaging, terahertz imaging and optical imaging techniques for oral, skin and prostate cancers.

UCLA

Dr. Min Jae Lee, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Korea (Advisor, Prof. Asad Abidi)

MinJaeLee Dr. Min Jae Lee received his PhD degree in 2008. His fields of interests are in high speed ADC/DAC, clocking, CMOS RF circuits, time domain signal processing and power electronics for electrical vehicles. GIST-Korea

Dr. Jenny Yi-Chun Liu, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan (Advisor, Prof. Frank Chang)

Jenny Yi-Chun Liu Dr. Jenny Liu received his PhD degree in 2011. Her current research interests include millimeter-wave and THz devices, circuits and systems, ultra low power

systems, and reconfigurable radio. She received the Outstanding Contribution Prize of the Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference in 2010, a co-recipient of the Best Paper Award of the IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium in 2009, and a co-author of the Feature Article of IET Electronics Letters in 2011.

Prof. Chang recalls, "While at UCLA, Jenny conducted innovative work on self-healing power amplifiers to achieve high linearity and high efficiency. The concept has been well-received by the community."

Dr. Manuel Mazo, Jr., Delft University of Technology (Advisor, Prof. Paulo Tabuada)

Manuel Mazo Dr. Manual Mazo received his PhD degree in 2010. His research interest is mainly TUDelft in Control Systems with concentration on theoretical foundations behind practical uses in modern control implementations.

Prof. Paulo Tabuada comments, " Manuel was the most versatile student I ever worked with. He made fundamental contributions to the theory of symbolic control, event-triggered, and self-triggered control while at the same time being the main architect behind PESSOA, a toolbox for the automated synthesis of embedded control software."

Dr. Gyungsu Byun, West Virginia University (Advisor, Prof. Frank Chang)

Dr. Byun received his PhD degree in 2011.His research area includes high-speed and low-power interface circuits and systems for communications, high performance time-precision circuit designs (DLLs/ PLLs/ CDRs). He is the author/co-author of over 7 papers and holds 18 patents in the field of electronic circuits.

Prof. Frank Chang recalls: "Dr. Byun is a very dedicated researcher and has done excellent work in promoting RF-interconnect for mobile memory I/O interface applications."

Dr. Pei-Ling Chi, National Chaio Tung University, Taiwan (Advisor, Prof. Tatsuo Itoh)

Dr. Chi received her PhD Degree in 2011. Her research interests include metamaterial-based transmission line theory/circuits and antenna/array designs.

Prof. Tatsuo Itoh recalls: "While at UCLA, Pei-Ling was dedicated to the realization of miniaturized antennas and metamaterial-based circuits. She has several high quality publications on both areas and holds the U.S. patent on the innovative diplexer synthesis using metamaterial transmission structures."

Dr. Nicholas Mastronarde, The State University of New York at Buffalo (Advisor, Prof. Mihaela van der Schaar)

Dr. Mastronarde received his PhD Degree in 2011 and was awarded the First Year Department Fellowship and the prestigious Dissertation Year Fellowship at UCLA. He has published and submitted 10 peer reviewed journal papers, 13 peer reviewed conference papers, and has been granted one US Patent. His research interests are in low power multimedia systems, energy-efficient resource allocation and scheduling in wireless networks and systems, dynamic power management, cross-layer design, Markov decision processes (MDPs), and reinforcement learning. The StateUniversityofNewYorkatBuffalo

Prof. van der Schaar recalls: “Nick Mastronarde's most outstanding assets are the breath of his knowledge and research interests. This diversity of research abilities and interests, and ability to bridge the gap between theory and practice, enabled him to make breakthroughs in his thesis on energy-efficient multimedia signal processing and transmission, which are essential to make high-quality wireless multimedia on mobile devices truly ubiquitous.”

Dr. Jaeok Park, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea (Advisor, Prof. Mihaela van der Schaar)

Dr. Park graduated from UCLA's PhD course in 2009. His field of interest includes game theory, mechanism design, network.

Prof. van der Schaar recalls: "Jaeok is a stellar researcher and was a true honor to have him as part of my research group first as a part-time student and then as a post-doc. Jaeok developed pathbreaking research results at the frontier of microeconomic theory and engineering. I am certain that Jaeok's work in UCLA Electrical Engineering department will form the foundation of a new area spanning the disciplines of engineering and economics, which combines the unique understanding of the interaction between economic incentives and engineering technologies."

Dr. Chia-Hsiang Yang, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan (Advisor, Prof. Dejan Markovic)

Dr. Yang received his PhD in 2010. He continued as a post-doc researcher for the Parallel Data Architectures group in UCLA. He has co-authored several journal and conference publications for IEEE. His research interest is in energy-efficient reconfigurable architectures and digital integrated circuits for communication and biomedical application.

Prof. Markovic recalls: "Chia-Hsiang is a single-man-company type of student. He took complex signal processing algorithms and made them look simple in his chip implementations, for which he received several awards. He is adored by his peers for his altruistic behavior and good spirit."

Dr. Ping-Hsuan Hsieh, National Tsing-Hua University, Taiwan (Advisor, Prof. Chih-Kong Ken Yang)

Dr. Hsieh received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 2004 and 2009, respectively. Her research interests include analog and mixed-signal CMOS circuit designs and semiconductor technologies for high-speed data communications, data converters, PLL/DLL designs for clock generation and clock-and-data recovery, voltage regulators.

Prof. Yang comments: "I am overjoyed to learn of Dr. Hsieh's appointment to a tenure-track faculty position at National Tsing-Hua University. She has always been a very clear thinker, a thorough and meticulous researcher, and one who is willing to tackle challenging and innovative ideas. She brings with her a wealth of industry experience both from internships at Texas Instruments for many summers, and from her post-doctoral position at IBM T.J. Watson Research Lab. I welcome her as a colleague and believe that she will be very successful in her academic endeavors."

Dr. Wei-Ho Chung, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan (Advisor, Prof. Kung Yao)

Dr. Chung received his PhD in 2009. His research interests include detection, estimation, wireless communications, statistical signal processing and networks. While at UCLA, he enjoyed teaching and plans to dedicate his career in this vocation.

Prof. Yao recalls: "Wei-Ho is unique in that he was able to formulate these theoretical fading models, then designed and performed field measurements by himself around the UCLA campus, and finally validated his theoretical models with these fading statistics. Wei-Ho had the spirit of a true innovative researcher."

Dr. Chiao-En Chen, National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan (Advisor, Prof. Kung Yao)

Dr. Chen received his PhD in 2008. He has numerous IEEE publications and international journals on Signal Processing and Communications. His areas of expertise include array signal processing, detection and estimation theories, and MIMO communications.

Prof. Yao recalls: "Chiao-En was the co-author of the chapter on “Source and Node Localization in Sensor Networks,” in the seminal collection of papers in Classical and Modern Direction-of-Arrival Estimation, ed. T.E. Tuncer and B. Friedlander, AP, 2009. This chapter covered the background and state-of-the-art work in these areas."

Dr. Qun (Jane) Gu, University of California, Davis (Advisor, Prof. Frank Chang)

Dr. Gu received her PhD in 2007. Her research interests include RF/mm-wave and mixed signal integrated circuit and system designs.

Prof. Frank Chang recalls: "Jane was both talented and disciplined in ultra-high frequency circuit and system designs. She was the first to demonstrate a CMOS oscillator with output signals beyond one Tera Hertz based on harmonic cancellation techniques developed in our High Speed Electronics Lab." UC, Davis

Dr. Shalabh Gupta, Indian Institutes of Technology, Bombay, India (Advisor, Prof. Bahram Jalali)

Dr. Gupta received his PhD in 2009. His research interests include: high-speed CMOS analog/RF/mm-wave integrated circuits and systems, and optical fiber communication systems and microwave photonics.

Prof. Bahram Jalali recalls: "Shalabh's industry experience and his creativity were the key to the success of a DARPA-funded consortium that was led by our group. His work resulted in many publications and praise from our government and industrial partners. He was a pleasure to work with."

Dr. Bryan Yu Hu, University of Alberta, Alberta, Canada (Advisor, Prof. Lei He)

Dr. Hu received his PhD in 2009. His research interests include: architectures and CAD tools for field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and their applications on accelerating massive scale data processing and data mining.

Prof. Lei He recalls: "Bryan was the key student for our radiation-hard FPGA synthesis project, and demonstrated great research skills and wonderful ownership. The research outcomes have profound scholarly and practical impacts, and have attracted lots of attention from places such as Cisco, JPL and Xilinx."

Dr. Heemin Park, Sookmyung Women's University, Seoul, South Korea (Advisor, Prof. Mani Srivastava)

Dr. Park received his PhD in 2006. His research interests include: multimedia, sensor networks, ubiquitous and entertainment computing.

Prof. Mani Srivastava recalls: "In his thesis research, Heemin Park collaborated with researchers at UCLA's School of FIlm, Theater, and Television to develop distributed wireless sensor platforms and software systems for intelligent light control and sensor-augmented multimedia recording in theater and film production."

Dr. Hyunggon Park, Ewha Womans University, South Korea (Advisor, Prof. Mihaela van der Schaar)

Dr. Park's research interests include: game theoretic approaches for distributed resource management and multi-user transmission over wireless/wired/peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.

Prof. Mihaela van der Schaar recalls: "Hyunggon was a very hard working, dedicated, focused student, who always knew that he wanted to join academia and worked hard to achieve this goal. He was always ready to teach and help others with their research and aimed at gathering international experience."

Dr. Bibhudatta Sahoo, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, India (Advisor, Prof. Behzad Razavi)

Dr. Sahoo received his PhD in 2009. His research interests include: high-speed CMOS analog/RF integrated circuits and systems.

Dr. Thomas Schmid, The University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah(Advisor, Prof. Mani Srivastava)

Dr. Schmid received his PhD in 2009. His research interests are wireless communication, sensor networks, routing strategies and embedded systems.

Prof. Srivastava recalls: "Thomas Schmid's thesis research led to the development of novel algorithms and hardware mechanisms for ultra-low power, low-cost, high-accuracy and fine-resolution time synchronization and clocks in wireless embedded sensor networks in extreme ambient environments."

Dr. Yiyu Shi, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, Missouri (Advisor, Prof. Lei He)

Dr. Shi's research interests include renewable energy applications and 3D IC. His work has been recognized with multiple best paper nominations in top conferences.

Prof. Lei He recalls: "Yiyu received [his] PhD within 4 years after getting his BS degree with no. 1 ranking from Tsinghua Univ. When he interviewed for academic positions, the only concern about him was that he might be too young to be a professor. His story has become a recruitment highlight for my group."

Dr. Amarjeet Singh, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi, India (Advisor, Prof. William Kaiser)

Dr. Singh received his PhD in 2009. His research interests include: using mobile phones for critical applications including healthcare, education and energy monitoring and low cost technologies for sustainable development.

Prof. Bill Kaiser recalls: "the remarkable progress in Amarjeet's research combining embedded systems and wireless networking have enabled new mobile healthcare capabilities that also address worldwide, urgent needs."

Dr. Jitkomut Songsiri, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand (Advisor, Prof. Lieven Vandenberghe)

Dr. Songsiri received her PhD in 2010. She was a recipient of the Royal Thai scholarship while studying at UCLA during 2005-2010. Her research interests include convex optimization in machine learning, signal processing, and control theory.Prof. Vandenberghe recalls: "Jitkomut's research has led to new algorithms for building graphical models of time series."

Dr. Kevin Tsia, Hong Kong University, Hong Kong (Advisor, Prof. Bahram Jalali)

Dr. Tsia received his PhD in 2009.His research interests includes: silicon photonics for optical interconnect applications and microscopy for biomedical applications.

Prof. Jalali recalls: While at UCLA, Kevin published several high quality papers on integration of energy harvesting in silicon photonics. In the final stretch of his thesis, he made a seminal contribution to the development of the STEAM camera, the world's fastest imager.

Dr. Lap Yeung, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (Advisor, Prof. Yuanxun Ethan Wang)

Dr. Yeung received his PhD in 2010. His research interests are: multi-antenna systems, miniaturization techniques for RF/Microwave passive circuits, and computational electromagnetics.

Prof. Ethan Wang recalls: "Lap is dedicated in innovative designs of miniaturized and integrated wireless communication front-ends. In particular, he demonstrated the first 4-antenna coupling free MIMO front-end in an area of 0.1 x 0.1 wavelength with the mode-based array concept developed in our Digital Microwave Lab."

Dr. Hao Yu, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (Advisor, Prof. Lei He)

Dr. Yu received his PhD in 2007. His research interests include design exploration of analog/RF circuits beyond 60GHz, and 3D cyber-physical computing systems.

Prof. Lei He recalls: "Before joining UCLA, Hao was an intern at ADI and performed so well that ADI granted a research gift to partially support his study at UCLA. He continued to be a great performer in his post-PhD employment, becoming a key developer of the best analog simulation tool available today."