UCLA Engineering Faculty and Alumnus Asad Madni Receives IEEE Medal of Honor

Asad Madni ’69, M.S. ’72, a distinguished adjunct professor of electrical and computer engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, has received the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Medal of Honor, the world’s largest technical professional organization’s highest honor, for significant contributions to the development of sensing and systems technologies.

The IEEE recently announced its 2022 awards, including the Medal of Honor, which is given annually to a candidate who has “made a particular contribution that forms a clearly exceptional addition to the science and technology of concern to IEEE.” Madni was selected for his “pioneering contributions to the development and commercialization of innovative sensing and systems technologies, and for distinguished research leadership.”

Madni received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from UCLA and a doctorate from California Coast University. He developed and commercialized sensors, systems and instrumentation for the automotive, industrial and aerospace industries. In particular, the sensing technologies that he created are the fundamental building blocks that help make autonomous vehicles a reality. As president, chief operating officer and chief technology officer of BEI Technologies, he led the development of the Extremely Slow Motion Servo Control System for the Hubble Space Telescope and the Quartz MEMS GyroChip® technology that is used in stability control and rollover protection in automobiles.

Madni was selected for his “pioneering contributions to the development and commercialization of innovative sensing and systems technologies, and for distinguished research leadership.”

The IEEE Medal of Honor was established in 1917 as the Institute of Radio Engineers’ Medal of Honor. The award was renamed when the organization merged with the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1963 to form IEEE. The professional society now has more than 400,000 members in more than 160 countries.

Previous medal recipients include some of the world’s most accomplished electrical engineers, such as Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, whose observation known as “Moore’s Law” noted that the number of transistors on integrated circuits would double about every two years; Claude Shannon, known as the father of information theory; Nobel laureate Paul Lauterbur, who co-developed technologies for magnetic resonance imaging; Nobel laureate William Shockley, a key figure in the development of the transistor; and Nobel laureate Guglielmo Marconi, whose invention of wireless telegraphy led to the development of the radio.

Madni has been elected a fellow or an eminent member by some of the world’s most prestigious scientific and technical academies and societies. Among them are the National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Inventors, Royal Academy of Engineering, Canadian Academy of Engineering, European Academy of Sciences and Arts, New York Academy of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, IEEE, Institution of Engineering and Technology, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Society of Automotive Engineers, American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering and the Royal Aeronautical Society. He received the UCLA Samueli Alumnus of the Year award in 2004.

In 2019, Eta Kappa Nu, the honor society of the IEEE, established a new annual award, its highest honor, named after Madni, to recognize his more than 50 years of service and leadership.

Via UCLA Samueli Newsroom.