UARIZONA
2021 MAGAZINE
2021 ECE Magazine
Table of Contents
The University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering P.O. Box 210104 Tucson, AZ 85721-0104
3
Tamal Bose: From The Department Head
4
ECE Rankings & Stats
5
Faculty, Staff & Student Recognition
520.621.6193 head@ece.arizona.edu ece.engineering.arizona.edu
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Salim Hariri: $3M Funds Project to Model Cybersecurity After Human Body
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Bane Vasić, Quntao Zhuang: Engineering the Quantum Future
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Quntao Zhuang: Receives DARPA Award
The biennial ECE magazine is published for alumni and friends of the University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering. All contents © 2021 Arizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved. The University of Arizona is an equal opportunity, affirmative action institution. The university prohibits discrimination in its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation or gender identity, and is committed to maintaining an environment free from sexual harassment and retaliation. Produced by Susan Novosel and University of Arizona Engineering Marketing and Communications Illustrations and graphic design by University of Arizona Health Sciences - BioCommunications Photography: Jacob Chinn; Emily Dieckman; IBM Data and AI; Elena Makansi; Patrick McArdle; Susan Novosel; Kurt Patterson; Erica Rankin; Viola Watson Contributing writers: Emily Dieckman; Jeff Gardner
10 Boulat Bash: Covert Communications Go Quantum
11
Marwan Krunz: Advancing Wireless Spectrum Research
12 Janet Meiling Roveda: Tracking Cancer Growth With AI 13 Ali Bilgin: MRI Technology to Combat Colorectal Cancer
Wolfgang Fink: PHM Society Recognition, New Fellowship
14 Michael Marcellin: Teaching Students to Think Like Engineers 16 Raymond Kostuk: Looking to the Future of Solar Energy 18 Ivan B. Djordjevic: $1M In Research Funding 20 Hao Xin: 2020 da Vinci Fellow 21 David Hahn: Building on the Spirit of Wildcat Engineering
Liesl Folks: ECE Professor Leads Campus as Provost
22 Ming Li, Jonathan Sprinkle: Provost Recognizes ECE Faculty 23 Tosiron Adegbija, Gregory Ditzler, Boulat Bash: ECE Professors
Receive CAREER Awards
24 Michael Marefat, Jonathan Sprinkle: Visiting Undergraduates
Boost Research Skills
25 ECE Research Centers & Institutes 26 Ivan B. Djordjevic, Ming Li, Quntao Zhuang: First Craig M. Berge
Dean’s Fellows Loukas Lazos, Ravi Tandon: Reaching Career Milestones 27 Paul Prazak: In Memoriam 28 Linda Powers: Retiring After 13 Years at UArizona 29 Robert McBride, Rich Scholes: Raytheon Contributes to
ECE’s Education Mission
30 Core Faculty
32 Amazing Alumni 34 Student Spotlight
2 | The University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
From the Department Head Monumental Reminders Carry the Day
Greetings, and welcome to this issue of the biennial ECE magazine. So much has happened in the last two years, especially 2020: the passing of Kobe Bryant, wildfires raging across the country, protests and riots, a tumultuous election process, and a deadly pandemic. The world over, we have been reminded of the importance of staying strong, and being patient, understanding and kind. Personally, I’ve been constantly reminded of the fragility of life and how important it is to be thankful. Not only am I not taking anything for granted, but also I have a renewed grownup perspective on taking “time-outs,” and making the time to really listen. Despite these challenging times, ECE has persevered, learned, adjusted and had two amazingly productive years.
Tamal Bose
New Academic Programs
ECE’s on-campus enrollment is at about 400 undergraduates and 175 graduate students. Online programs are growing fast with enrollment for the MS degree program at about 175. Plus, the new online BS program has 90 students. Sampoerna University (Indonesia) and Amrita University (India) will become the sites of ECE’s first two micro-campus programs in fall 2021. A joint ECE-SIE software engineering bachelor’s program is seeking approval from the Arizona Board of Regents and expected to start in fall 2021.
Research on the Rise
Research expenditures remain on a steady climb. In fact, faculty members have won more than $12 million in grants and contracts over the last two years. Salim Hariri, Gregory Ditzler and I received a $3 million grant from the Department of Energy for research and training in cybersecurity techniques modeled after the human body. Bane Vasić and Quntao Zhuang are co-investigators on a $26 million National Science Foundation Center for Quantum Networks, led by Saikat Guha in optical sciences. Zhuang won the DARPA Young Faculty Award for his work on quantum information processing, and it comes with a research grant of $500,000. Boulat Bash, Tosiron Adegbija and Ditzler received NSF CAREER grants. Ivan Djordjevic, as co-PI, won a $1 million NSF award for building a quantum network testbed. Ravi Tandon, Hao Xin, Ali Akoglu and I received a $1.3 million contract from the National Spectrum Consortium, via General Dynamics. Additionally, the NSF industry-university Broadband Wireless Access and Applications Center and Cloud and Autonomic Computing Center were renewed for another five years.
Leaving Legacies and Looking Forward
Professor Emeritus Linda Powers retired this fall after 13 years of service. We will miss her. The department is sad to announce the passing away of Miklos Szilagyi soon after his retirement in 2019. He served ECE for 36 years and left an exceptional legacy of scholarship. I am grateful to the entire ECE community – students, alumni, donors, sponsors, industry partners, campus collaborators, faculty and staff – for your uninterrupted, and vitally important, support and work. I look forward to the next few years of working hard together to improve the lives of people in Arizona, across the nation and throughout the world.
Tamal Bose
Professor and Department Head
2021 Magazine | 3
ECE Rankings & Stats Top 25%
Top 30%
Electrical Engineering Schools (U.S. News & World Report)
Computer Engineering Schools (U.S. News & World Report)
9
U.S. Public Research Institutions National Science Foundation and Times Higher Education
14
Patents Issued (2018-2019)
4 33
Top 20
Research Centers
6
Core Faculty
486
Undergraduate Students
346
Graduate Students
22
Operational Startup Companies
Countries Represented
4 | The University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
IEEE Fellows
15:1
Student-Faculty Ratio
22
%
21%
International Students
Faculty, Staff & Student Recognition Student Interface Awards for Excellence
The annual Student Interface Awards for Excellence honor ECE faculty, staff and teaching assistants who support our students by making them feel they are essential and valued members of the university community.
Outstanding Senior and Graduate Students Each semester, the College of Engineering honors outstanding students who are nominated by their professors and department heads.
Connor Fuhrman
Berk Akgun
Konor Klein
Syntia Bebongchu
Michael W. Marcellin
Michael Bullock
Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant 2019
Outstanding Graduate Student 2019
Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant 2020
Outstanding Senior 2019
Outstanding Senior 2020
Regents’ Professor
Outstanding Faculty, Senior 2020
Stephanie Marcellin
Ao Li
Ratchaneekorn “Kay” Thamvichai
Terrance Pat
Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant 2019
Outstanding Graduate Student 2019
Outstanding Graduate Student 2020
Professor of Practice
Outstanding Faculty, Junior 2019 and 2020
Hal S. Tharp
Tru Thanh Quach Outstanding Senior 2020
Associate Department Head and Associate Professor Outstanding Faculty, Senior 2019
Alexis Vasquez
Undergraduate Academic Advisor Outstanding Staff 2020
Not Pictured:
Chad Ricci
Outstanding Senior 2019
Tami Whelan
Graduate Academic Advisor Outstanding Staff 2019 2021 Magazine | 5
From left, Clarisa Grijalva Lugo, Jesus Horacio Pacheco, Pratik Satam, Salim Hariri, Shalaka Chittaranjan Satam, and Cihan Tunc are looking for ways to stop cyberattakers in their tracks.
$3M Funds Project to Model Cybersecurity After Human Body Researchers are training a future cybersecurity workforce and creating bioinspired methods for keeping computers secure. A woman touches a hot stove, but thanks to the nervous system, she snatches her hand away before she gets too hurt. A virus enters the body, but the immune system fends off the invader before it can cause too much damage. What if our computers and smartphones could respond to security threats in the same proactive way our bodies respond to health threats? ECE researchers are developing a form of cybersecurity inspired by these human biological systems that detect and address threats in their earliest stages. The team is also offering training and research opportunities to students from underrepresented backgrounds. The Partnership for Proactive Cybersecurity Research and Training, or PACT, is funded by Salim Hariri a three-year, $3 million grant from the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Minority Serving Institution Partnership Program. The University of Arizona, which was designated as a Hispanic-Serving Institution in 2018, is collaborating with Howard University, Navajo Technical University and Argonne National Laboratory.
“I felt we could learn about how the body protects us by reacting to threats and maybe apply it to cyber by building a cyber immune system,” said Salim Hariri, the project’s principal investigator. “We’re trying to build these abilities where, when somebody attacks your computer, these measures can detect the attack and act on it before you’re even aware something is compromised.”
“The hottest jobs, and some of the highestpaid jobs, today are in cybersecurity. If I were a student who wanted job security, a high salary and the chance to make a big impact on our society, this is the field I would want to study.” – Salim Hariri
The term cybersecurity might bring to mind images of government secrets and companies managing large quantities of information, but it’s an important issue for anyone who owns a computer or smartphone. “You carry around this phone that’s networked to all kinds of servers, and your information is very vulnerable,” said Tamal Bose, ECE department head and project co-investigator. “Cyberspace is the domain where most wars are going to be fought in the future.”
6 | The University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Machine Learning Improves Security
Traditional approaches to cybersecurity have been reactive and ad hoc. A device is attacked, or threatened, and then the cybersecurity system tries a handful of strategies to mitigate the damage or counter the attack. The team hopes to create a scientific approach that catalogs exactly which strategies attackers have at their disposal, almost like a playbook in football. Then, researchers can develop their own playbook of defense methods, carefully monitor the “vitals” of the cybersystem, and be ready to respond at the first sign of an attack. “The moment we see abnormal behavior, we want to be able to say, ‘Oh, that’s play No. 5, and I already have a way to respond to it, and I can act on it quickly,’” Hariri said. “An attacker can reach hundreds of thousands of devices in a fraction of a second, so we need our ability to detect threats and protect a system to work just as quickly.” The team is using machine learning methods. In this type of artificial intelligence, machines teach themselves how to recognize patterns and learn new Tamal Bose tasks, meaning humans don’t have to step in and program the machines every time they want them to do something new. Machine learning is especially useful in a cybersecurity context because attackers, with a whole playbook of tactics at their disposal, often evolve their methods. How they attack a computer today might be different from the way they do it tomorrow, so the cybersecurity system must be able to learn as it goes along, detect changes in the environment and even anticipate changes before they occur. Co-investigator and assistant professor Gregory Ditzler continues the analogy of a hand on a hot stove. “Once you put
Salim Hariri (left) and student Pratik Satam simulate a home security system test.
your hand down on that stove, you know not to touch it again, because it’s hot,” he said. “But how can you be prepared to recognize other dangers, like putting your hand in a toaster? This is where machine learning comes in.”
Training for Underrepresented Groups
The grant takes a two-pronged approach to improving the science of cybersecurity. While researchers develop these new techniques, they’ll also be training students from the University of Arizona and partnering universities – especially underrepresented minority groups and women – to join the cybersecurity workforce. The team’s initial plan included an on-campus summer program. Because of the pandemic, however, a daylong virtual workshop, featuring student and faculty presentations, was held in April 2020 instead. “The hottest jobs, and some of the highest-paid jobs, today are in cybersecurity,” Hariri said. “If I were a student who wanted job security, a high salary and the chance to make a big impact on our society, this is the field I would want to study.” Moving forward, the initiative plans to provide students opportunities to do
internships with the Department of Energy and in other government labs, where they will conduct research and learn about emerging technologies. Additionally, cybersecurity modules will be integrated into existing courses, and, starting in spring 2021, the PACT Academic Scholars program will support up to 20 students. “What makes the Fourth Industrial Revolution unique is the physical, biological and data sciences converging in unexpected ways,” said UArizona President Robert C. Robbins. “Researchers learning from human biological systems to inspire a new tool that improves cybersecurity is the kind of innovative thinking we need, and is characteristic of the University of Arizona’s problem-solving culture. Involving underrepresented students makes this effort an even more powerful example of UArizona expertise creating real-world impact at the intersection of research and the Gregory Ditzler student experience. We are building a highly skilled workforce that will continue tackling grand challenges well into the future.” 2021 Magazine | 7
ECE researchers are working to build a quantum computer and the quantum internet.
Engineering the Quantum Future The White House National Quantum Coordination Office in February 2020 issued A Strategic Vision for America’s Quantum Networks. The document stated, “By leading the way in quantum networking, America is poised to revolutionize national and financial security, patient privacy, drug discovery, and the design and manufacturing of new materials, while increasing our scientific understanding of the universe.” University of Arizona engineers are answering the call. Bane Vasić, professor of ECE and mathematics and a member of the BIO5 Institute, Zheshen Zhang, assistant professor of materials science and engineering and optical sciences, and Quntao Zhuang, assistant professor of ECE and optical sciences – are playing critical roles in two new quantum centers at the forefront of this work.
CQN aims to lay the foundation for the quantum internet. The central focus is on creating a fabric to connect quantum computers, data centers and gadgets using their native quantum information states of qubits. Qubits offer dramatic increases in processing capacity. They allow for processing the 0 and 1 states of classical bits at the same time, called superpositioning.
“The potential impact of the quantum center is so immense, it is almost incalculable.” – Saikat Guha, CQN Director
Saikat Guha
Qubit-Driven Tech to Transform the Internet
University of Arizona has received an initial, five-year, $26 million grant from the National Science Foundation, with an additional five-year $24.6 million option, to establish and lead the Center for Quantum Networks. Core partners are Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University. Vasić, Zhang and Zhuang are all contributing their expertise.
“The transformation of today’s internet through quantum technology will spur entirely new tech industries and create an innovation ecosystem of quantum devices and components, service providers and applications. The potential impact of CQN is so immense, it is almost incalculable,” said Saikat Guha, CQN director and principal investigator and associate professor of optical sciences. The UArizona team includes experts from engineering, law, optical sciences, and social and behavioral sciences.
8 | The University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Super-Powerful Computing for GPS, Health Care, Astronomy
A $115 million Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center, or SQMS – led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermilab – aims to build a quantum computer and develop quantum sensors that could lead to discoveries about dark matter and other elusive subatomic particles. Vasić, a pioneer in classical error correction and fault-tolerant decoders, is adapting his algorithms to ensure information processed in a quantum computer remains intact. Zhang and Zhuang are working on increasing the precision of quantum sensing for applications including GPS, astronomy laboratories, biomedical imaging and fundamental physics.
Darpa Selects Quntao Zhuang for Young Faculty Award Quntao Zhuang, an assistant professor in ECE and the James C. Wyant College of Optical Sciences, received a 2020 Young Faculty Award from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. The award recognizes rising stars in junior research positions whose work can benefit the Department of Defense and issues of national security. The program also provides awardees with mentoring and contacts in industry and the Defense Department.
Quntao Zhuang
Zhuang received the award based on his research proposal, “Distributed Quantum Sensor Networks Enhanced by Quantum Error Correction.” Sensor networks are used in applications ranging from GPS navigation to astronomy and biomedical imaging. Quantum sensor networks are powered by entangled sensors, and the state of entanglement is so fragile and sensitive that it can collapse in the presence of even minimal interference. Zhuang’s project focuses on improving the ability of quantum sensors to perform in the face of noise and other error-causing imperfections. Bane Vasić, Zheshen Zhang & Quntao Zhuang are working on quantum computers & sensors.
“It’s an exciting time in the College of Engineering, as teams of our researchers work on efforts to revolutionize the way we compute, communicate and sense,” said David W. Hahn, Craig M. Berge Dean. “SQMS is focused on addressing some of the most fundamental barriers to quantum computing, and I know the expertise of Bane, Zheshen and Quntao will prove invaluable.” Both centers are dedicated to inspiring and training students, and the university is developing a graduate program in quantum information science and engineering. “Quantum computing is going to completely transform our current technology and become a driver for the economy,” Zhang said. “We expect the centers will play a major role in changing the next generation of our workforce.”
“This award is an exciting opportunity to advance the technologies behind quantum sensor networks, which could make many areas of scientific research and even everyday life work with higher speed and efficiency,” Zhuang said. “I am grateful for DARPA’s support and look forward to working with their team.” Zhuang, who earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from Peking University and his PhD in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, came to the University of Arizona in 2019 after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley. He leads the Quantum Information Theory Group in ECE, which explores fundamental quantum information theory as it connects to communication and sensing applications. He has published more than 25 journal articles on quantum information science, including in top journals such as Physical Review Letters and IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. 2021 Magazine | 9
Boulat Bash (right), with students Zihao Gong and Michael Bullock, discusses ways to use quantum computing for more secure communications.
Covert Communications Go Quantum
Assistant professor Boulat Bash says if you want to learn more about his research, you have to start with Hedy Lamarr, the Austrian-American actress and inventor.
During World War II, Lamarr helped devise a method for the U.S. government to send messages not just securely, so enemies couldn’t decode the contents, but also covertly, so they wouldn’t even know a message was being sent. For comparison, imagine running across a field guarded by armed snipers. While a bulletproof vest might offer protection from serious injury, a soundproof invisibility cloak preventing you from being detected at all would provide a welcome few extra layers of security.
Boulat Bash
Lamarr’s invention was an early version of spread spectrum communications, which involves dividing a message into small pieces and spreading it
across many frequencies, rather than sending it on only one channel. To an adversary, these small blips on different channels look like nothing more than random noise. However, a recipient who knows what to look for can watch all the channels and piece the message back together into a whole. “The underlying problem is how to prevent a signal from being detected by an adversary, by protecting the existence of the message itself,” Bash said. “To jam the signal, the Germans would have had to know that signal was there and where it was.” The work of Lamarr and other scientists went on to become the foundation for jamming-resistant radar in the 1950s and the earliest cellphones. Covert communications are also used in military operations and by organizers of social unrest. Thus far, almost all the applications for spread spectrum communications have been classical, not quantum. Classical computing uses bits, units of information that exist as either 0s or 1s. Quantum computing is exponentially more powerful because
10 | The University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
it uses qubits, which can exist in both states at the same time. For example, in 2019, a quantum computer performed a calculation in just three minutes that would take 10,000 years for a classical computer to perform. With $500,000 in funding from the National Science Foundation, Bash and his team are investigating ways to harness quantum techniques for covert communication networks to operate at their utmost levels of security and efficiency.
Uncovering the Square Root Law
Bash was researching wireless communication security in 2012 when he uncovered the fundamental limit of covert communications, or exactly how much information could reliably be transmitted via covert communications. The number of reliably transmissible bits, or pieces of information, is equal to a constant times the square root of n, where n equals the time-bandwidth product (a measure resources available to transmit a signal). This simple equation, c√n, made a big splash.
“Boulat’s work told us the maximum amount of information a person can send reliably and covertly, while assuming the adversary is as powerful as possible,” said Saikat Guha, a professor of optical sciences, who at one time worked with Bash in the quantum information processing group at Raytheon BBN Technologies. “It set the bounds on what can be done and let us evaluate how much room our current systems have to improve compared with these limits.” Bash’s paper on the square root law opened up a new subfield within the field of information theory, with hundreds of papers subsequently being published on the subject. But, again, most of this new work used classical approaches.
Covering Offense & Defense
This project is investigating how quantum resources can be used to improve covert communications as
well as how communicating parties can maintain security when an adversary has quantum resources. Using quantum resources could provide an exponential boost in the amount of information that can be securely and reliably sent. This is made possible by moving from the square root law to something called the linear law. In linear law, the equation for how much information can be sent is c×n, instead of c√n. For example, if n=10,000, then the amount of information that is transmittable using the square root law is c√10,000, or c×100. In linear law, the amount of transmittable information is c×10,000 – 100 times as much information as with the square root law. “Moving from square root law to the linear law increases the covert information throughput tremendously,” Bash said. “That has not been done for
quantum at all, so we’re going to address that in this project.” As communicating parties become more powerful, so too can their adversaries. Thus, part of this project will focus on how to keep communications secure even when a quantum-powered adversary has all the resources allowable by the laws of physics. Much of the preliminary work for the project was done by PhD student Michael Bullock, when he was still an undergraduate. Bullock is among the university’s inaugural class of Herbold Fellows and was named the department’s 2020 outstanding senior. “This project will allow us to continue in the same vein of involving undergraduates in this work,” Bash said. “We would not be here without students. That’s why I love being able to teach.”
Marwan Krunz Advances Wireless Spectrum Research The University of Arizona is part of a national collaboration to ensure efficient use and sharing of the radio frequency, or RF, spectrum. By using a National Science Foundation grant to develop a National Wireless Spectrum Center, the eightuniversity team aims to have a transformational impact on the RF spectrum, ensuring U.S. leadership in future wireless technologies, systems and applications. As more technologies – such as 5G/6G; Wi-Fi; the Industrial Internet of Things; and connected and autonomous vehicles – make use of the wireless spectrum, communication channels can become increasingly congested. “A key theme in this research is how to mitigate such interference and allow for harmonious coexistence and equitable sharing of the available spectrum among heterogeneous systems,” said Marwan Krunz, the Kenneth Von Behren Endowed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “The effort is highly multidisciplinary, requiring expertise in various areas.” The collaboration not only seeks to measure the interference in the radio spectrum but also to build a “spectrum database” that coordinates access to large swaths of the shared spectrum. The UArizona team, which also includes Chris Walker and Alyson Ford of the Department of Astronomy and Steward Observatory and Dan Kilper of the James C. Wyant College of Optical Sciences, is providing expertise in wireless protocols, machine learning, hybrid wireless/optical backhauling and radio astronomy.
“A primary focus from our side is looking at scenarios and architectures for coexistence between terrestrial communications, such as Wi-Fi and 5G, and on the other hand, telescopes and passive receivers, making sure there is no interference between the two,” Krunz said. “There is a significant interest in bringing together the wireless and radio astronomy communities.”
Marwan Krunz
Not only could this work reduce future radio spectrum interference, but it could mitigate existing interference by creating a sensing network to pinpoint broadcast sources and better enforce spectrum access rules. “The project will also explore new spectrum frontiers for frequencies above 100 GHz, for which wireless technologies are not currently designed and channel propagation is not well understood,” Krunz said. “Industry is keen on targeting these very high frequencies for technologies including future 6G systems, but they still face fundamental technical challenges that the planned center hopes to address.” Collaborating institutions are Columbia University, Princeton University, New York University, Oregon State University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of WisconsinMadison and Syracuse University. 2021 Magazine | 11
UArizona biology researchers include, left to right: Andrew Paek, Allison Samayoa, Dante Bellomo, Kathleen Lasick, Elizabeth Jose, Julie Huynh, Sneha Srinivasan and Lisa Shanks.
Tracking Cancer Growth with AI
Artificial intelligence algorithms and sophisticated sensors come together as researchers seek to identify cancer earlier and stop it from spreading. Janet Meiling Roveda, who holds dual appointments in ECE and biomedical engineering, is using artificial intelligence to speed up the process for tracking the way breast cancer and colon cancer cells morph and spread. Ultimately the research is expected to improve cancer treatment. “Right now, it’s all done by humans,” Roveda said. “People are using microscopes to take photos, and from those images, they identify and manually mark the cancer cells: Where are they located? When did they start to split? And once they split, how many turn into new cells or die? And if they split, who is whose ancestor? We realized the problem is right there: The humans are a bottleneck.” This painstaking manual process of identifying and marking the cells on hundreds Janet Meiling Roveda of individual slides takes the researchers an average of eight hours, often conducted over two or three days. Once the slides are treated, researchers take images until it is possible to identify movement. And once they’re done, they repeat the
process. Not only is the process on each slide slow, but also the slides can only document dozens of cells at a time. Roveda and Andrew Paek, an assistant professor of molecular and cellular biology, are using a Convolutional Neural Network, or CNN, a type of algorithm that can learn to recognize objects based on their shape. To teach CNN what to look for on the slides, Paek’s team manually tagged thousands of cells, and the algorithm learned to copy the process. The CNN identifies and marks cancerous cells in just 10 minutes, as opposed to eight hours. The artificial intelligence integrates with powerful advanced microscopes that can process dozens of cell slides at a time. Plus, the AI can view the cells in wavelengths undetectable to the human eye, providing even more information faster. “Instead of using visible light, we’re using more channels – for example, fluorescence,” Roveda said. “Normally when you use fluorescent images, you have to translate them back into
12 | The University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
something the human eye can see. Now, we don’t need to do that. Through the processing using AI, we can identify the cancer cells long Siteng Chen before they have any visible morphology changes.” The team has filed invention disclosures for some of the algorithms and plans to use them at the UArizona Cancer Center. Also contributing to the project was Siteng Chen, who earned his PhD in ECE in 2020 and now works as a data scientist at Esatto Healthcare. Roveda is also the director of the Center to Stream Healthcare In Place, an academic and industrial partnership that aims to develop personalized in-home technologies for managing chronic diseases. Some of the center’s partners, including Baylor College of Medicine and the California Institute of Technology, also are interested in using the AI-cancer tracking technology in clinical practice. “This is very reliant on collaboration,” said Roveda. “If we look forward, a lot of this is very likely to be used in the clinic where they measure the reactions to cancer treatments.”
MRI Technology to Combat Colorectal Cancer ECE associate professor Ali Bilgin, who also holds appointments in biomedical engineering, medical imaging and the BIO5 Institute, is working to develop imaging technology that can combat the spread of colorectal cancer. Since the liver commonly is affected when a patient has colorectal cancer, finding early spread of cancer to the liver is crucial for patient survival. With earlier detection of smaller tumors, patients and physicians have more options for treatments, including both tumor removal surgery and non-surgical alternatives.
consequence of colorectal cancer.
Bilgin is involved with multiple aspects of the project: developing novel pulse sequences that enhance abdominal MRI, development and evaluation of quantitative MRI methods, and acceleration of imaging in MRI. He said his ECE background is the perfect fit to help develop this technology.
Bilgin is part of a research team supported by a fiveyear, $2.2 million grant from the National Cancer Institute, awarded to Ali Bilgin speaks with his students Eze Ahanonu (left) and Zhiyang Fu (right). principal investigator Maria Altbach, professor and vice chair of research in the Department of “MRI machines are based on Medical Imaging. Research funded by fundamental concepts that are familiar this grant seeks to enable development to electrical and computer engineers,” of novel magnetic resonance imaging, Bilgin said. “Electrical and magnetic or MRI, technique methods to diagnose fields, radio frequency pulses, the early spread of tumors as a sensors and sensor electronics, signal
processing, image formation and image processing are all ECE concepts that we teach our students.” Because of this overlap, the project involves many ECE graduate students. The preliminary work that went into the project proposal was also the topic of multiple ECE doctoral dissertations. The project officially started at the end of 2019, but the team’s ability to image subjects was severely limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fortunately, data collection has ramped up again. “We are currently working in close collaboration with one of the leading magnetic resonance manufactures, Siemens, to develop and transfer our imaging techniques to the clinic,” Bilgin said. “Several of the technologies we helped create are becoming products that are distributed worldwide.” The team’s research is being conducted at the UArizona Translational Bioimaging Resource and in the Department of Medical Imaging at Banner – University Medical Center Tucson.
Prognostics and Health Management Society Honors Wolfgang Fink
ECE and biomedical engineering professor Wolfgang Fink has a longstanding relationship with the Prognostics and Health Management, or PHM Society, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing the discipline. In 2020, he received the inaugural Scott Clements Most Valuable Person Award at the organization’s 12th annual conference. Shortly after, the society named Fink as its vice president.
Wolfgang Fink
“I feel deeply honored by the confidence
entrusted to me by the executive board of directors to help define, direct, and advance the goals and aspirations of the PHM Society,” said Fink, who is also the inaugural Edward & Maria Keonjian Endowed Chair in the College of Engineering and holds appointments in ophthalmology and vision science, systems and industrial engineering, and aerospace and mechanical engineering. “Taking on such a leadership role is the culmination of my involvement with the PHM Society.” The organization recognized Fink with the inaugural Scott Clements MVP Award both for his contributions to society events and his assistance in gaining broader recognition from the
scientific community. For example, as 2019 general conference chair, he led the society’s most successful conference to date – with the highest ever attendance, revenue, sponsorship support and number of countries represented. He’s organized, established, or led multiple conference panels as well. He was named a fellow of the society in 2018. Additionally, he received a 2020 fellowship from the Society of PhotoOptical Instrumentation Engineers, for his work in artificial vision for the blind, and smartphone-based eye exams and disease diagnostics. And Fink is a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. 2021 Magazine | 13
Michael Marcellin and team members Ryan Jarick, Tyler Wong, Justin Kim, Jennifer Nadolski, Nathan Lam, Faisal Abdi and Bennett Estrada (left to right) get set to test their airplane for the 2021 Arizona Autonomous competition.
Michael Marcellin Makes ‘Thinking Like an Engineer’ Top Educational Priority
Popular ECE professor puts three decades of experience to work supporting student clubs and helping undergraduates get real-world experience. Every semester, Michael Marcellin, Regents’ Professor of ECE, tells his students the story of how he became an engineer. He was working in construction as an electrician in California’s Death Valley. On one particularly grueling, 120-degree summer day as he and his coworkers finished up, their boss went inside to fetch a man from an air-conditioned office. The man came outside, looked over a couple of items, told everyone they’d done a great job, then went back into his nice, cool office. “I asked my boss, ‘Who’s that guy?’” Marcellin recalled. “He said, ‘He’s the engineer.’ And in September of that year, I was studying engineering.” Marcellin went on to earn master’s and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University and joined the University of Arizona as a faculty member in 1988. His accomplishments are numerous, including major contributions to the development of JPEG 2000, a wavelet-based image compression method. He received the university’s Technology Innovation Award in 2006. However, he’s known since his first year of college that he wanted to become a professor, so, these days, he’s back to focusing on what moves him most – students. “I like it every bit as much as I thought I would,” he said. “I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
“I think the hands-on experiences provided by clubs are super valuable to students’ careers. They absolutely improve students’ ability to see the big picture – basically, to think more like an engineer.”
14 | The University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
– Michael Marcellin
Club Mentor and Keeper of Knowledge
In 2012, Marcellin began working with the university’s Baja Racing Team, a club in which students work together to design, create, test and compete with a single-seat Baja styled, off-road car. Marcellin serves as the faculty adviser for the electrical subteam, which is in charge of building the telemetry system for the vehicle. He also advises the electrical subteam of Wildcat Formula Racing, which designs, builds and competes with formula-style vehicles. In addition, he is the adviser for the national engineering honor society Tau Beta Pi. “I think the hands-on experiences provided by clubs are super valuable to students’ careers,” he said. “Even if they don’t help classroom performance, they absolutely improve students’ ability to see the big picture, understand why what they’re learning is important and integrate their work into a bigger system – basically, to think more like an engineer.” His belief in the importance of extracurricular involvement for engineers led him, in 2014, to become the founding adviser of the Arizona Autonomous Vehicles Club, which designs, builds and competes with uncrewed air and ground vehicles. In 2017, he also became the founding adviser of the Coaster Cats Club, where students design theme park elements and compete at a national competition. He acts as a “keeper of knowledge” for the clubs to help ensure leadership transitions are smooth and progress doesn’t stall when officers graduate.
Baja Racing team dedicates circuit board to their mentor.
Leading by Example, Encouraging Experimentation
Many of the students he works with in clubs and on senior capstone projects publish papers about their work. Kyle Norland, now a PhD student in systems and industrial engineering, published two papers when he was an undergraduate in the Arizona Autonomous Vehicle Club. One of them won the award for best undergraduate paper at the International Telemetry Conference. “Dr. Marcellin was really encouraging of the research process and experimenting, of that mindset of just trying new stuff and seeing what happens,” said Norland, who also served as the president of Tau Beta Pi as an undergraduate. “He played a really big role in giving me an example of what a researcher would be, of what that would be like.” Marcellin, who has won 11 teaching awards, said situations like this are exactly the reason that he places so much focus on undergraduate education: He believes these students stand to gain the most from mentorship opportunities. “I decided I wanted to go where I could really have an impact and help people enter the engineering profession,” he said. “Our incoming undergraduates are really good. They’re really smart, and most of them are really motivated.” Jennifer Nadolski, a senior in ECE, has known Marcellin since she joined Arizona Autonomous as a first-year student. She now serves as the club’s president, as well as the secretary for the university’s chapter of the Society of Women Engineers. She said his passion for teaching comes through in his combination of hands-on help, personal mentorship and “dad jokes.”
Arizona Autonomous Vehicle Club does pre-flight check for model plane.
“Dr. Marcellin is friendly, humble and passionate about teaching students, and one of the best professors in the ECE Department,” she said. “I highly value his support and advice, and I am very grateful to have met him.”
2021 Magazine | 15
Raymond Kostuk is collaborating to increase the efficiency of solar energy conversion.
Raymond Kostuk Looks to Future of Solar Energy Professor Raymond Kostuk has long been interested in bridging scientific fields to develop new capabilities. During his more than three decades at the University of Arizona, Kostuk, who has appointments in ECE and the James C. Wyant College of Optical Sciences, has pioneered research in holography and its application in fields as diverse as solar energy conversion and medical imaging. In addition to being a fellow of the Optical Society of America and the SPIE, he’s also acted as a mentor to an array of successful students, published books, and conducted research funded by numerous government agencies and industry.
From Light to Electricity
Kostuk also helped form a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center, or ERC, called Quantum Energy and Sustainable Solar Technologies, or QESST. The center brings together researchers from multiple universities and energy companies to advance photovoltaic technology, which involves converting light into electricity. Now entering its final year of a 10-year NSF award, the center’s primary goal has been to increase the efficiency of solar energy conversion in a way that can scale to terawatt – or 10^12 watt – levels. Scalability is important because, at any given moment, the United States is using about 4 to 5 terawatts of power. The cost of photovoltaics must also be competitive with fossil fuel energy production.
The center does outreach with students at all levels -- from K-12 to graduate school. Teaching solar energy concepts at the grade school level is especially important to the center as it motivates young learners to pursue STEM education paths and careers in science and engineering. The team also worked to educate K-12 teachers, providing them with projects to use in their curricula. “The collaborations enabled by the ERC have undoubtably been one of the highlights of my career,” Kostuk said. “It was extremely beneficial to me and the photovoltaic community at large, because we formed a really great team of experts. In many respects, this team is now considered a national resource on photovoltaics and will most likely play a major role in converting the United States to clean energy in the future decade.” Kostuk has been involved in QESST since its formation, alongside professors Christiana Honsberg, from Arizona State University, and Harry Atwater, from the California Institute of Technology. Honsberg and Atwater have both testified before Congress on the state of photovoltaics in the United States. “Professor Honsberg was interested in working with me because I was using optics to improve the performance of photovoltaic systems. I was kind of an outlier, because most of the other faculty involved were materials scientists who were experts on designing and processing solar cells,” Kostuk
16 | The University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
said. “At first I felt like a fish out of water being surrounded by materials scientists, but as time went on, we found ways to collaborate and come up with interesting ideas that used the strengths of many different areas.” Over QESST’s lifetime, photovoltaics grew rapidly in the United States and across the world. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, jobs in solar power have increased by nearly 160% since 2010.
concepts in applications including medical imaging, solar conversion systems and augmented reality eyewear. In 2016, he published: Holographic Applications in Solar Energy Conversion Processes, which details how holography can be used to improve the performance of photovoltaic systems. With QESST nearing its close, Kostuk and his co-researchers are formulating a new ERC proposal focused on integrating photovoltaics into society.
Holograms made in Raymond Kostuk’s lab separate wavelengths to make solar cells operate more efficiently. Solar cells work best with one range of colors from the solar spectrum.
Kostuk estimates his work with QESST resulted in him receiving well over $1 million in research funding, and another half-million from spinoff contracts and grants.
“Looking forward, I’m thinking about what to do with the remainder of my life,” Kostuk said. “I still like teaching, and I really want to make some contributions in the solar energy area, because I think climate change is a real threat to humankind. And a lot of the ideas I have are aligned with this new ERC. I want to serve as a steward for new interests and workers in this area.”
Preparing Engineers For The Workforce
Kostuk also prepares engineers for the workforce in his Photonic Systems Lab, which investigates new capabilities for photonics in medical imaging, solar energy conversion and optical communications. Some of Kostuk’s former students include Yuan Luo, who is now a professor at the Institute of Medical Devices and Imaging at National Taiwan University; Shanalyn Kemme, who is a lead research engineer at Sandia National Labs, James Carriere, director of business development at Coherent Optics Inc.; and Erich de Leon, who has worked at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Raytheon Technologies.
Holographic Concepts and Applications
He’s stayed busy in other ways, too. In 2019, Kostuk published Holography: Principles and Applications, a book detailing holographic
Raymond Kostuk (right) and student Isela Howlett test a bench-top imaging instrument.
2021 Magazine | 17
“We live in a world with neverending demands for high-speed internet that can be accessed securely. We’re looking for a unique way to approach different research problems to enable the next generation of optical networks.” – Ivan Djordjevic
Researchers are using quantum resources to advance secure communications. 18 | The University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Ivan Djordjevic Lands $1M in Research Funding Ivan B. Djordjevic, professor of ECE and optical sciences, has dedicated his career to furthering optical and quantum communications. And his hard work is paying off. In just over a year – from July 2019 to July 2020 – he received an individual share of more than $1 million in research funding. His projects involve an array of academic institutions and are funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Army Research Office and Air Force Research Laboratory.
Advancing Quantum Communications
The NSF grant is supporting research on using quantum resources, such as quantum key distribution, for secure communications. This technique enables two parties to automatically produce a shared random secret key known only to them, which can then be used to encrypt and decrypt messages. Co-investigators on the project are materials science and engineering professor Zheshen Zhang and optical sciences professor Linran Fan. “This work enables high spectral efficiency quantum communications so that communication rates can be substantially improved,” Djordjevic said. “As such, this project will represent an essential step toward low-cost integrated quantum communication systems that can be mass-produced.” A $330,000 Army Research Office grant is funding the advancement of ultra-highspeed secure quantum communications. Quantum resources like entanglement and quantum key distribution could mean sharing information with exponentially more speed and higher level of security than is currently possible. But the fragility of quantum states makes these powers difficult to harness, and Djordjevic is navigating this balance.
Cross-Campus Collaborations Djordjevic also received $78,000 from Azimuth Corp. to further quantum communications and networking
technologies, on which he is collaborating with Zhang. A $65,000 grant from L3Harris Technologies is funding the development of quantumkey enabled cybersecurity solutions. And $86,000 from Digitallight Inc. is supporting research on error correction for free-space optical communications. Djordjevic serves as the principal investigator on all of these projects.
technologies into a single book. We live in a world with never-ending demands for high-speed internet that can be accessed securely. We’re looking for a unique way to approach different research problems to enable the next generation of optical networks,” Djordjevic said.
He is collaborating on a number of additional projects. For example, he is co-investigator on an NSF-funded project to develop the Interdisciplinary Quantum Information Research and Engineering, or INQUIRE, quantum-network testbed infrastructure at the University of Arizona. Ivan Djordjevic (left) and student Xiao Han in the Optical Communication INQUIRE supports multiuser Systems Laboratory. entanglement distribution, switching and routing. Quantum communication expertise at Djordjevic’s outstanding year in research the university includes entangled-photon funding comes on the heels of another and squeezed-light sources, quantum successful year: In the 2018-2019 measurements and characterization, academic year, he had over $1 million free-space quantum communications, in research expenditures. Additionally, and integrated quantum photonics. he was named an IEEE Fellow in early The NSF grant totals $999,999, and 2020. He received the designation, UArizona is providing an additional which is granted to fewer than 0.1% of $428,571. voting IEEE members annually, for his contributions to physical-layer optical communications. He serves as an area Prolific Authorship, IEEE editor/associate editor and member Fellowship of the editorial board of the OSA/IEEE Furthermore, in late 2019 Djordjevic Journal of Optical Communications published his seventh book, Physicaland Networking; the IOP Journal of Layer Security Optics; IEEE Communications Letters; and Quantum the Elsevier Physical Communication Key Distribution. Journal, or PHYCOM; Optical and The publication Quantum Electronics; and Frequenz. integrates modern cryptography, physicallayer security, quantum key distribution, covert communication and cybersecurity
“With his impressive number of patents, publications and research awards, Ivan is exceptional in multiple areas, and well-deserving of this award,” said Tamal Bose, ECE department head. “We are proud to call him a member of the department.” 2021 Magazine | 19
Hao Xin 2020 Da Vinci Fellow Professor Hao Xin has a long history of moving research beyond the laboratory and into the commercial world. His work on high-frequency technologies has applications in areas ranging from autonomous vehicles to biomedical imaging and energy harvesting. And his research into metamaterials, which have properties not found in nature, has moved the scientific community closer to technology such as invisibility cloaks. The College of Engineering named Xin the 2020 da Vinci Fellow for his dedication to advancing academic programs and research in the college over the past 15 years. Da Vinci Fellows receive a one-time grant of $10,000 to support their work. Xin said the award was particularly meaningful because it comes from his home institution and is named for one of the most famous inventors of all time. Da Vinci’s dreams were far ahead of his time. His notebooks contain drawings of machines that look like modern helicopters and tanks, for example. “Da Vinci is a person every inventor looks up to, and I love inventing things,” said Xin, who has more than 20 patents and leads the Millimeter Wave Circuits and Antennas Laboratory. “I want to invent things that actually help people, and da Vinci is inspiring. Sometimes things like flying cars seem impossible, or sound crazy. But it’s probably going to become a reality in less than 50 years – and less than 500 years from when da Vinci was alive.” Xin is a fellow of and fills several roles in IEEE. He is associate editor for the organization’s Antenna and Wireless Propagation Magazine and the Journal of Radio Frequency Identification. He also serves as the chair of the Young Professionals Committee of the Antennas and Propagation Society and chair of Tucson’s joint chapter of the Microwave Theory and Techniques Society and Antennas and Propagation Society. “Whether he is patenting an invention, establishing a startup, or bridging the
worlds of academia and industry, Hao has been highly successful moving research beyond the laboratory to widely beneficial commercial applications,” said David W. Hahn, Craig M. Berge Dean of the College of Engineering. “This, along with his dedication to his students, makes him a fantastic choice for the college’s 2020 da Vinci Fellow.”
Hao Xin
Autonomous Vehicles and Additive Manufacturing
Among Xin’s inventions is a 3D-printed version of a Luneburg lens, a device used to increase radar reflectivity. Many highend vehicles are equipped with multiple types of sensors to enable adaptive cruise control, collision avoidance and other autonomous capabilities. Xin’s Luneburg lens could singlehandedly replace many of these sensors, at a much lower cost. He licensed the product to a startup called Lunewave and is the company’s chief technical officer. 3D printing and similar techniques have opened a number of possibilities for manufacturers. For example, Xin is researching how to use new manufacturing techniques for designing antennas. “We don’t yet have an efficient way to find out how to take advantage of all those freedoms that weren’t possible before,” Xin said “So, we’re collaborating with groups across campus on new theoretical design techniques.” Working with Qiang Zhou of the Department of Systems and Industrial Engineering and Helen Zhang of the Program in Applied Mathematics, Xin is combining ideas for machine learningbased design and 3D printing to improve
20 | The University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
antenna design and manufacturing. The researchers envision their methodology leading to an automated process for antenna design and manufacturing. “The outcome of this research may help revolutionize the design and manufacturing of antennas widely used in the upcoming era of the Internet of Things,” he said.
From Cancer Detection to Hypersonic Flight
Xin’s interdisciplinary work has a wide range of applications. His thermoacoustic imaging efforts lend to early breast cancer detection and hypothermia treatment. His expertise in microwave frequencies is aiding Erica Corral, associate professor of materials science and engineering, in her research on properties of materials used in hypersonic flight. Xin planned to use the fellowship funding to purchase software for his research in electromagnetic simulation and support student research activities that would not otherwise be possible. “Hao is internationally recognized for his expertise in antennas and RF circuits, so he is well-deserving of this collegewide recognition,” said Tamal Bose, ECE department head. “We are fortunate to have Hao in the department and look forward to what he will accomplish next.”
Dean David Hahn Builds on Spirit of Wildcat Engineering Growing and diversifying the College of Engineering is priority for David W. Hahn, the inaugural Craig M. Berge dean. He is confident in the college’s growth potential despite the challenges COVID-19 has presented.
“While the pursuit of engineering knowledge has at times seemed inconsequential in the course of the pandemic, the work we’ve done to develop technology, fight COVID-19, and graduate students ready to take on the problems of today and tomorrow has proven that the spirit of Wildcat Engineering is stronger than ever,” he said. Since joining the University of Arizona in July 2019, Hahn has overseen establishment of the Craig M. Berge Engineering Design Program, which provides design opportunities throughout the undergraduate years. The program and deanship are supported by a major gift from the Berge family in honor of Craig M. Berge, who graduated from the college in 1957. A talented and diverse pool of engineers relies on the college increasing undergraduate enrollment, he said, adding that recruitment of students from underrepresented
backgrounds is key.
“The engineering enterprise must reflect the diversity of society at large. We simply will not meet workforce needs if large percentages of the population are excluded from participation.” Hahn also started a transfer student scholarship fund and has advanced plans for a David W. Hahn school of mining and new software engineering degree. He was at the University of Florida for 20 years, eight as the head of mechanical and aerospace engineering. Hahn led the construction of a 4,000-square-foot student design center and increased the female undergraduates in his department to 50% above the national average.
ECE Professor Leads Campus as Provost The University of Arizona made a number of important engineering hires in 2019. Not only did the college welcome David W. Hahn as the college’s Craig M. Berge dean, but, at the university level, Liesl Folks was named senior vice president for academic affairs and provost, as well as an ECE professor. Folks, who previously served as dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Buffalo, said her STEM background has armed her with the flexible mindset and problem-solving skills that are essential for any career. And she sees big potential for growth in the College of Engineering, particularly considering Tucson’s growing reputation as a hotspot for innovation. “If you look at how extraordinary our science enterprise is, it’s an obvious next step for engineering to be amped up to meet the needs of the state and the nation, so we can do more to train great STEM-educated graduates,” she said.
Though her career spans decades in academia and industry, she remembers vividly how it all started: at age 16, when she visited a linear nuclear accelerator during a science camp. “Something went off in my lizard brain, and I thought, ‘I want one of those,’” she said. “I always advise students to trust their instincts, because, really, one thing I still really love about physics is the ability to play with the big steel ‘toys’ in the lab.” These days, Folks is a strong advocate for diverse teams, which she says are both more successful and more fun. At the University of Buffalo, she helped spearhead an initiative through the American Society for Engineering Education to increase diversity and inclusion at engineering colleges across the United States. While making lasting, systemic change, is no simple task, she is confident it’s a worthy one. This has been highlighted more clearly than ever during COVID-19, as teams from across campus came together to plan for safe campus reentry. “Any time you bring together a workforce of diverse people, it’s amazing the quality of work that comes out, and the pandemic has highlighted that,” Folks said. “People across all different disciplines – male and female, LGBTQ+, all different races and ethnic backgrounds – are leveraging their expertise to support our Wildcat community through the pandemic.”
Liesl Folks
2021 Magazine | 21
Provost Recognizes ECE Faculty Each year, the University of Arizona Office of the Provost recognizes a handful of faculty members from across campus for their accomplishments. In both 2019 and 2020, ECE faculty members were selected for the Distinguished Scholar Award, which recognizes mid-career faculty who are leading experts in their field. Awardees receive $10,000 in university funds to further their work.
Ming Li: Mitigating Cybersecurity Threats
Associate professor Ming Li received the honor in 2019, for his cybersecurity research that aims to keep technologies ranging from smartphones and laptops to driverless vehicles and cardiac defibrillators safe from hackers.
positions. He mentors and provides research opportunities for undergraduates as well.
Jonathan Sprinkle: Driving Autonomous Technology Jonathan Sprinkle, the Litton Industries John M. Leonis Distinguished Associate Professor of ECE, received the Distinguished Scholar Award in 2020. His research into autonomous vehicles examines systems of cars, rather than individual vehicles – which, at the outset, seems counterintuitive for many drivers.
“I feel very lucky to receive this award,” Li said. “We’ve done many years of work on wireless networks and cybersecurity. These are issues that affect every aspect of our lives.” Li arrived at UArizona in 2015 after working as an assistant professor at Utah State University. Since then, his accomplishments have been numerous, including a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2014, an Air Force Office of Scientific Research Summer Faculty Fellowship in 2015 and an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award in 2016. As the Internet of Things has made more aspects of human lives dependent on wireless networks, Li’s mission is to make the devices people use and the communication among them more secure. One method involves using a single, highly secure helper device, such as a smartphone or laptop, placed in the vicinity of other devices before they can join a network. Other devices such as Fitbits and “internet of things” sensors, must prove their proximity with this device to join the network.
Jonathan Sprinkle (right) checks in with students Maria Nathalie Risso and Matt Bunting.
“When I’m a driver, it feels like the best thing I can do is pass everyone, but if I give up a little bit of that control, it’s better for me in the long run,” he said. “Not only is it better for traffic overall, but it’s better for energy if we maintain a constant speed, instead of speeding up and slowing down.” Sprinkle also collaborated on a $3.5 million project in 2020, led by the University of California, Berkeley. It aimed to demonstrate that intelligently controlling a small percentage of vehicles in traffic flow can improve the energy efficiency of all the vehicles in the flow by reducing the effects of congestion.
“We outsource the security to another, more powerful device, like your smartphone,” Li said. “If you already set up a secure password on your smartphone, for example, you can use this secure link to bootstrap other devices onto the network.”
Making an impact in industry is a focus for Sprinkle, an NSF CAREER Award recipient who has received awards from organizations such as the NSF I-Corps and Tech Launch Arizona. In addition, he also prioritizes promoting student success. He provided mentorship in an NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates Program, or REU as a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley, then went on to found a new NSF REU focused on autonomous vehicles at UArizona. He received the ECE department’s Excellence at the Student Interface Award in 2015, and says his experience as a mentor has helped make him the professor he is today.
Li is also committed to teaching and working with students. He is currently supervising 11 PhD candidates, and two of his former graduate students are now in tenure-track faculty
“I have tremendous respect for the faculty who have received this award in the past, and to be listed alongside them is a tremendous honor,” he said.
Ming Li (left) in his Wireless Network and Cybersecurity Research Lab with student Yanjun Pan.
22 | The University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Three ECE Professors Receive Career Awards The Faculty Early Career Development Award, or CAREER Award, is the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious award in support of early-career faculty. Three ECE assistant professors have received the award since 2019.
Tosiron Adegbija
With his 2019 CAREER Award, Tosiron Adegbija is researching techniques for efficiently leveraging a material called spin-transfer torque random access memory, or STTRAM, as an alternative for static RAM in computer caches. STTRAM can store the same amount of data as static RAM using far less space, making it especially useful for resource-constrained devices like cellphones and tablets.
Tosiron Adegbija
Caches reduce the time it takes to access and run frequently used programs on computer devices by storing them in a small, specialized memory. Adegbija compares a computer’s main memory to a kitchen refrigerator and a cache to a mini fridge in a bedroom: It saves a midnight snacker a trip all the way to the kitchen, but it can’t hold everything. However, caches also increase devices’ power consumption, which makes them expensive. However, if carefully designed, they can also make computers more energy efficient.
Gregory Ditzler
2020 CAREER awardee Gregory Ditzler specializes in applied machine learning, creating mathematical models and algorithms that computers can use to recognize patterns. For example, researchers might show a computer a series of electronic medical records taken from patients – some with and some without cancer. Over time, the computer learns to recognize which features are indicative of the disease and which aren’t relevant. Machine learning also helps GPS navigation services make traffic predictions, cellphones unlock at the sight of the owners’ faces, email inboxes recognize spam, internet bank accounts identify fraudulent activity, and autonomous vehicles learn how to recognize traffic signs. With so much personal and financial information living online, it is quickly becoming critical to apply machine learning techniques to cybersecurity, and this is the focus of Ditzler’s CAREER work.
Gregory Ditzler
Boulat Bash
Awardee Boulat Bash researches covert operations, or sensing and communicating in a way that’s not just undecipherable, but undetectable, to potential adversaries. With his 2020 CAREER Award, he is investigating the application of quantum resources to covert sensing.
Boulat Bash (right) with student Zihao Gong
Though powerful, quantum resources also make systems more complex and fragile, so their use is limited to very specific situations, such as when a system has low power levels and is operating in an environment with high noise levels. Those happen to be the exact conditions needed for covert operations. Think about trying to move across a field undetected: You’d want lots of noise and other interference around to make you less noticeable. And you wouldn’t want to plow through in a high horsepower vehicle if you were trying to slip by unnoticed.
“If you reduce how much time you spend accessing data, you may also be expending less energy despite consuming more power,” Adegbija said. “My research explores new ways to take advantage of the cache’s positive qualities, while mitigating its negative qualities.”
“Machine learning is such a hot topic right now because it’s integrated into everything we use in our daily lives – from the computers we use to create Word documents to the cellphones we use to make phone calls, take photos and text,” he said.
“To operate covertly, you have to have high noise so that you can hide your probes somewhere, and you have to have low power for the probes, because of the code requirements,” Bash said. “That corresponds very directly to the sweet spot of where quantum has the most benefit.”
Adegbija earned both his MS and PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Florida and started working at the University of Arizona in 2015.
Ditzler earned his MS in electrical and computer engineering at Rowan University and his PhD in the same subject at Drexel University. He joined UArizona in 2015.
Bash earned his MS and PhD from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, then worked in industry for several years before joining UArizona in 2018. 2021 Magazine | 23
Visiting Undergraduates Boost Research Skills
Students from across the country have the chance to gain hands-on research experience in fields including highfrequency communications and self-driving vehicles through the Research Experience for Undergraduate programs at the University of Arizona. ECE hosts several of these programs, which are funded by the National Science Foundation. Among the most prestigious summer programs for undergraduates, REUs are primarily geared toward students who might not otherwise have opportunities to do research, particularly women or those from underrepresented minority backgrounds.
Launching a New REU
In summer 2019, associate professor Michael Marefat and department head Tamal Bose hosted the first year of a new REU focused on high-frequency wireless communications, one of the department’s research strengths. It’s also an important topic in today’s increasingly connected world, with applications and job opportunities in areas including military and government, aviation, public safety, space and satellite operations, weather stations, and FM and TV broadcasting.
“The REU gave me real-world experience in working as a professional researcher, which helped me decide my future career choices,” said Samuel Spillane, a University of Massachusetts Dartmouth student. “The leadership experience we gained was invaluable to my team’s success.”
CAT Vehicle Progresses Through Pandemic
The Cognitive and Autonomous Test Vehicle, or CAT Vehicle, REU, has been providing students a chance to program an autonomous vehicle every summer since 2013. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic meant the program had to be done virtually for the first time. But the 2020 cohort of nine students – seven of whom were women – still managed to conduct and present research about several areas related to autonomous vehicles.
Eight undergraduate students from locations as diverse as Puerto Rico, Massachusetts and Hawaii participated in the REU. “The REU students worked with faculty and PhD students as their mentors to learn the ropes of how to do research,” said Marefat, principal investigator for the project. “None of them knew how to do that when they came in. All of this was achieved in the course of 10 weeks.” Groups of two to three REU students were matched to projects according to their interests. One team took to the roof of the ECE building to send and receive long-range communications via radio from thousands of miles away. “Successful communication depends on using the right frequency and channel,” Marefat said. “They were trying to develop models that could predict what the radio should do based on the time of day and atmospheric conditions.”
Michael Marefat
Other groups worked on projects involving data processing algorithms, cybersecurity, and machine learning and artificial intelligence. The students also received their amateur radio licenses over the summer.
Jonathan Sprinkle
The program is led by ECE Litton Industries John M. Leonis Distinguished associate professor Jonathan Sprinkle, with assistant professor Gregory Ditzler serving as co-lead. “In spite of the many challenges posed by the pandemic with respect to travel, networking, and person-to-person meetings, these undergraduate researchers showed tremendous resilience and perseverance,” said Sprinkle, who was named interim director of the Transportation Research Institute in 2020. The students were split into four teams that focused on separate topics, such as teaching a vehicle to identify traffic lights, creating a low-speed adaptive cruise controller, and developing machine learning methods for vehicle sensors. Students Megan Walter of the University of Oregon and Iris Jones of Washington State University trained a model to mimic the behavior of an individual human driver. “Even with the limitations created by our current predicament, I was still able to grow so much, not only in my knowledge, but as a learner and a collaborator,” said Walter, who is studying math and computer science.
24 | The University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Centers & Institutes Arizona Research Institute for Solar Energy
AzRISE is a response to the challenge of planning for largescale, affordable solar energy power generation and training the workforce that will make the transition possible. Research goals include identifying, funding and coordinating Arizona-specific solar energy research opportunities, developing intellectual property and promoting development and widespread adoption of solar energy. Director: Kelly Potter
Broadband Wireless Access and Applications Center
BWAC researchers are developing technology and standards to create flexible, efficient, reliable and secure wireless access and application solutions to support the tremendous growth in wireless data traffic. BWAC is funded by the National Science Foundation and works with industry and academic partners to pursue large-scale research programs and create new visions for the wireless industry. Director: Marwan Krunz Co-director: Tamal Bose
Center for Quantum Networks 2019 HF REU participants Cierra San Roman and James Allen Morrison conduct research on the roof of the ECE building.
CQN is a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center led by the University of Arizona, with core partners Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University. The CQN team’s research areas include advancing quantum materials and devices, quantum and classical processing required at a network node, and quantum network protocols and architectures. CQN also aims to demonstrate the first U.S.-based quantum network that can distribute quantum information at high speeds, over long distances, to multiple user groups. Director: Saikat Guha, Optical Sciences ECE team members: Bane Vasić and Quntao Zhuang
Cloud and Autonomic Computing Center
CAC is a National Science Foundation Industry and University Cooperative Research Center with a focus on the research and design of information systems and services that are self-managed with minimal involvement by users and administrators. The center broadly encompasses cloud computing systems and applications, including storage and networking, data center design, cybersecurity and systems software.
2020 CAT Vehicle REU participants: Rachel Kozel, Naeemah Robert, Audrey Vazzana, Calvin Barrett, Tomo Bessho, Savannah Ball, Megan Walter, Iris Jones and Emily Baschab
Co-director: Salim Hariri UArizona site director: Ali Akoglu
2021 Magazine | 25
Craig M. Berge Dean’s Fellows College of Engineering alumnus Craig M. Berge passed away in 2017, after a successful career in the automotive industry. A generous gift from the Berge family established a four-year design program and an endowed chair for the dean of engineering, named in his honor. David W. Hahn, the college’s Craig M. Berge dean, created a fellowship in 2020 to further the Berge family’s vision of the college leading the way in solving 21st century engineering challenges. The first six-member cohort includes three ECE faculty members.
Ivan B. Djordjevic
Professor of ECE, with a joint appointment in optical sciences • University of Arizona 1885 Distinguished Scholar • IEEE Fellow • Optical Society Fellow
Ming Li
Associate professor of ECE, with an affiliation in computer science • University Distinguished Scholar • Office of Naval Research’s Young Investigator Awardee
Quntao Zhuang
Assistant professor of ECE, with a joint appointment in optical sciences • 2020 DARPA Young Faculty Awardee
Loukas Lazos, Ravi Tandon Reach Career Milestones
Two former CAREER award winners – Loukas Lazos & Ravi Tandon – have been promoted.
Diversity of Ideas
Lazos, who joined the department in 2007 after earning his PhD in electrical engineering and working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington, is now a full professor. His research interests include the security and privacy of wireless systems, network security, algorithms, network optimization and fair resource allocation. He teaches courses on computer networks, cybersecurity, cryptography and wireless systems. “Being in this line of work gives me the opportunity to collaborate with many young minds that have a high level of enthusiasm Loukas Lazos and a fresh perspective to the challenges we face,” Lazos said. “It is this diversity of ideas conceived by the students that drives scientific discovery and, eventually, progress.” Lazos serves on the editorial boards of the IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics & Security and Transactions on Mobile Computing. Previously he served as general co-chair for the Association for Computing Machinery WiSec 2012 Conference, as well as the Technical Program Committee co-chair for the Communication and Information System Security Symposium at GLOBECOM 2013 and the fourth IEEE International Workshop on Data Security and Privacy in Wireless Networks 2013. Lazos received a 2009 National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his research on the security and fairness of multichannel wireless networks.
26 | The University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Envisioning a Research Impact
Tandon has been promoted from assistant professor to associate professor with tenure. Tandon joined ECE in fall 2015, following a position as a research assistant professor at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. In ECE he teaches about information theory, wireless communications, cybersecurity, machine learning, digital communications, and estimation and detection theory. Tandon earned his BS in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, and his PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Maryland. His research interests include information and coding theory, wireless communications, distributed cloud storage systems and machine learning. “I tell my students to always have a vision when they try to think of a research agenda,” Tandon said. “Not all problems are impactful, and it’s very important for students to have a sense of which problems are timely, which problems need to be solved right now, and which of them will have the most impact.” Tandon won the Best Paper Award at IEEE GLOBECOM 2011 for his paper “Discriminatory Lossy Source Coding: Side Information Privacy.”
Ravi Tandon
In 2017, he received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award to advance his research on information theory and coding. In 2018, he received the Keysight Early Career Professor Award.
In Memoriam: Paul Prazak Paul Prazak was an integral engineer both in the lab and in the classroom, but that’s only part of a storied career. Graduating from the University of Arizona in 1973 with a master’s degree in electrical engineering, Prazak served as a connection between the old and new worlds of engineering. Not only did he lead product development teams at Tucsonbased Burr-Brown Corporation and Texas Instruments, but he cultivated these core values in future engineers as well, by establishing a student scholarship with his wife Linda: the Paul R. and Eva L. Prazak ECE Endowed Scholarship. Prazak passed away in February 2020. “Paul was an outstanding leader and mentor, enabling the success of many engineers and other employees at Burr-Brown and, subsequently, Texas Instruments,” said Tim Kalthoff, who worked closely with Prazak at Texas Instruments from 1993 to 2010. “Throughout his career, Paul supported the teams he led in creating industry-first, stateof-the-art products.”
years of serving as a judge for the Southern Arizona Research, Science and Engineering Foundation’s science fairs. At UArizona, Prazak was a regular judge at the College of Engineering’s annual Design Day and served on the Industrial Advisory Board beginning in 2003. Another lasting impact he made on the UArizona campus was managing the creation of the Thomas R. Brown Conference Room in the ECE Building. The room tells the legacy of Brown, who co-founded the Burr-Brown Corporation and was also a generous supporter of the college, with colorful panels that chart the company’s history decade by decade. “Paul, through his own contributions and generous sharing of knowledge and experience, had a strong influence adding to the foundation of a better world,” Kalthoff said. “Paul is a benchmark example of a truly successful engineer.” He is survived by Eva Linda Prazak, his wife and best friend of over 50 years.
While his favorite calculating device was the classic yellow Pickett slide rule, Prazak also helped technology forge ahead. For instance, he led a team that achieved the world’s first monolithic 16-bit digital-toanalog converter, critical for CD technology. This work ultimately landed Prazak’s team the 2010 IEEE Milestone Award. Along with advancing the field of digital audio, his work at Burr-Brown and Texas Instruments also benefited the technologies of ultrasound and cellphone tower base stations. “Paul’s leadership skills and designs addressed those early market requirements. Fast forward a few years and Burr-Brown had captured 80% of the worldwide [electronics manufacturing] market with innovative products thanks to Paul’s beginnings,” said Jim Naylor, who knew Prazak from the time Prazak started at Burr-Brown in 1973. In keeping with his tireless work ethic, Prazak served on many boards and committees helping empower the next generation of engineers. After retiring, Prazak instructed for Junior Achievement of Arizona, an organization which teaches elementary school children about concepts like money management, workforce readiness and entrepreneurial thinking. In addition, he was recognized for his many
Linda and Paul Prazak at a ‘60s party.
2021 Magazine | 27
Linda Powers Retires After 13 Years at UArizona anymore,” Powers said. “Now, you look at a problem and, because of your upbringing, you have a certain perspective on it. And what is exciting is to put that together with other people who have very different expertise than you and realize you can make something that is pretty special.” Her interest in interdisciplinary research made the UArizona an attractive opportunity for Powers, who cited the university’s medical school, business school and biomedical engineering department as major selling points for when she became a professor in 2007.
Linda Powers, shown here in the arctic with one of her instruments.
Linda Powers’ career has taken her to the ends of the world, on a microscopic level. The now professor emeritus of ECE has spent more than four decades bridging scientific disciplines, like medicine, chemistry, physics and engineering, and helping others do the same. At the University of Arizona, she created handheld sensors to identify life six feet under arctic ice and help FBI agents gather evidence; backpack-size instrumentation to identify diseasecausing bacteria in Tanzanian wells; and a disposable instrument to detect life-threatening, bloodborne pathogens in blood and other body fluids whose concentrations are below the ID50 level. She also developed instruments to discover microbial life in the Atacama Desert – the driest place on Earth – and in volcanic plumes. “I very much enjoy making things and making things happen,” said Powers, who also was the Thomas R. Brown Distinguished Chair for bioengineering, professor of biomedical engineering, and member of the BIO5 Institute. “So I combined the basic sciences with engineering in order to make things people can use, such as sensors and diagnostics.”
Powers earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and physics at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and a master’s in physics and PhD in biophysics from Harvard University. She worked on the technical staff of AT&T Bell Laboratories and contributed to publications on topics such as X-ray technology, biochemistry and molecular electronic devices. The problems she’s focused on center around a mixture of science and engineering, with applications to life and medicine. “It used to be that you stayed in your little hole, and that doesn’t happen
“You have to live in a large academic community to be able to do work like this,” Powers said. “You might have the best engineering school in the world, but you sure are limited in what you can do if you can’t talk to somebody else about it. I wanted to be in a place where I could.” By example and through her mentoring of faculty and students, Powers helped break down barriers for women in STEM. Among her many awards, she was honored with UArizona’s Faculty Diversity Award and recognized in Virginia Tech’s Generations of Women Leaders. Powers is also a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Institute of Chemists.
Linda Powers (right) and her student test water taken from the Kilombero River in Tanzania.
28 | The University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Although retiring from UArizona, Powers will continue working as the CEO and owner of Sonoran Analytical Instruments and Diagnostics, a company that manufactures laboratory instruments and sensors. This role, she said, will “keep me busy and out of trouble.”
Raytheon Contributes to ECE’s Education Mission
Robert McBride (PhD, 2005) and Rich Scholes (MS, 1996) are both ECE alumni who have spent their careers working at Raytheon Missiles & Defense. As adjunct faculty members, they’re also passing on their expertise to engineers of the future.
What is your role at Raytheon, and how long have you been with the company?
ROBERT: I am a senior principal systems engineer and have been with Raytheon Missiles & Defense for 23 years.
RICH: I am a senior engineering fellow and chief technologist for signal processing at Raytheon Missiles & Defense, where I started in 1994. I also support new business initiatives and internal research and development activities for a family of programs at RMD.
Do you feel your time at the University of Arizona and in ECE prepared you well for a career in industry? ROBERT: The controls background I received at the University
of Arizona most definitely prepared me for design work in the aerospace industry. The course content has direct application to creating solutions to engineering design problems. I have a whole suite of tools that I developed as a student that I rely on repeatedly.
RICH: I found part-
time work while I was in graduate school. My first year, I wrote instrument drivers for microwave test equipment, and this helped me to get a summer internship at Hughes Missile Systems in the radar center.
RICH: I started teaching Ethics and Contemporary Issues for
undergraduate students in January 2018. I heard that the department was looking for someone with industry experience to teach this class, and I have always enjoyed teaching.
What keeps you coming back, year after year? How does your experience in industry inform your teaching style?
ROBERT: Many times, I have seen former students of mine grow to become colleagues in industry. Honestly, this is what keeps me coming back as an adjunct faculty member. I truly love the opportunity to work with the students. I think that my experience in industry brings a touch of reality to student learning. For example, the C programming course is a very fun course where students may enter without any experience at all and exit with tangible training that can be listed on a resume. Although this course is fun and, at times, lighthearted, I often iterate that students, upon graduation, may be dealing with software that is considered safety critical. The principles taught in this course are important and must be taken seriously since they may be used in designs where human safety is a major concern.
RICH: I enjoy the thoughtful
interaction and interchange with students when they I stayed at Hughes solicit my opinion for help, [which was bought an interview, or questions Rich Scholes, Adjunct Associate Professor Robert McBride, Adjunct Lecturer by Raytheon] for the that arise. I also finish the remainder of my time in semester with invited guest graduate school and in lecturers to bring additional perspectives, reinforce ethical my second year, I took a detection and estimation class and concepts and introduce students to new technology and enjoyed it more than any class I had ever taken. I identified unintended consequences. I delight in these interchanges and a radar estimation problem for my thesis topic that led to the excitement from the students and the speakers for these additional research at work and provided a great background discussions. for the beginning of my career. I feel that my range of technical experience and management helps me to bring real life experience and perspective to the What do you teach at ECE? How and when did you class. I have always enjoyed mentoring and teaching new first begin teaching here? engineers about radar, employee work/life balance, and ROBERT: I started teaching at the university in 2009. I have providing simulations and tools for them to do their job. I hope taught everything from Discrete Control Theory, Continuous my teaching style always acknowledges that I have more to Systems Modeling and Elements of Electrical Engineering learn and that, as a collective group, we can do more than (Circuits), to Computer Programming for Engineering individuals will ever accomplish by themselves. Applications (C Programming). 2021 Magazine | 29
CORE FACULTY Tosiron Adegbija
Assistant Professor
PhD, University of Florida
Wolfgang Fink
Edward & Maria Keonjian Endowed Chair and Associate Professor
high-performance embedded computing • low-power embedded systems design
PhD, University of Tübingen, Germany
Ali Akoglu
Liesl Folks
Associate Professor
PhD, Arizona State University
artificial vision • autonomous robotic space exploration • biomedical sensors Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost and Professor
high-performance computing • reconfigurable computing • adaptive hardware systems
PhD, University of Western Australia
Boulat Bash
Salim Hariri
PhD, University of Massachusetts Amherst
PhD, University of Southern California
Assistant Professor
magnetic materials and devices • nanoscale metrology • spin-electronic devices Professor
applying information theory to practical problems of reliability and security
autonomic cybersecurity • big data analytics • resilient cloud services
Ali Bilgin
Gregory Heileman
Associate Professor
PhD, University of Arizona
Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and Professor
signal and image processing • data compression • magnetic resonance imaging
PhD, University of Central Florida
data science • machine learning
Tamal Bose
Dale Hetherington
PhD, Southern Illinois University
PhD, University of Arizona
Department Head and Professor
Professor of Practice
adaptive filtering • spectrum sensing • cognitive radios • channel equalization
electronic circuits • embedded microcontrollers • semiconductor processing
Siyang Cao
Raymond Kostuk
PhD, Ohio State University
PhD, Stanford University
Assistant Professor
Professor
radar signal processing • adaptive radar systems • innovative sensing systems
optics • photonics
Gregory Ditzler
Marwan Krunz
PhD, Drexel University
PhD, Michigan State University
Assistant Professor
Kenneth Von Behren Endowed Professor
scalable feature selection • applied machine learning to comparative metagenomics
wireless networks • cognitive and software-defined radios • MIMO communications
Ivan B. Djordjevic
Loukas Lazos
PhD, University of Nis, Serbia
PhD, University of Washington
Professor
optical communications and networks • quantum information processing
Steven L. Dvorak Professor
PhD, University of Colorado Boulder
geophysical applications of electromagnetics • optics • applied mathematics 30 | The University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Professor
network security • algorithms • network optimization • wireless communications
Ming Li
Jerzy W. Rozenblit
PhD, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
PhD, Wayne State University
Associate Professor
University Distinguished Professor
information security and privacy • wireless networking • cybersecurity
design and analysis of complex systems • modeling and computer simulation
Roman Lysecky
Jonathan Sprinkle
Professor
PhD, University of California, Riverside
Litton Industries John M. Leonis Distinguished Associate Professor
data adaptable systems • embedded systems • runtime optimization
PhD, Vanderbilt University
Michael W. Marcellin
Ravi Tandon
Regents’ Professor and International Foundation for Telemetering Professor PhD, Texas A&M University
digital communication • data storage systems • data compression • signal processing
autonomous vehicle technology • modeling • cyber-physical systems Associate Professor
PhD, University of Maryland, College Park
information and coding theory • wireless communications • machine learning
Michael M. Marefat
Ratchaneekorn “Kay” Thamvichai
PhD, Purdue University
PhD, University of Colorado Boulder
Associate Professor
Professor of Practice
intelligent systems • computer vision and robotics • machine learning
digital signal processing • communications
Kathleen Melde
Hal S. Tharp
PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs and Inclusion, College of Engineering and Professor antennas for computing • wildlife tracking • microwave circuit design
Associate Department Head and Associate Professor
control theory • engineering education
Kelly Potter
Bane Vasić
PhD, University of Arizona
PhD, University of Nis, Serbia
response of optical materials and devices to ionizing and non-ionizing radiation
coding theory • information theory • digital communications • memory and storage systems
Jeffrey J. Rodriguez
Hao Xin
PhD, University of Texas at Austin
PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Professor
Associate Professor
Professor
Professor
signal-image-video processing and analysis • automated image analysis
microwave • millimeter-wave and THz devices • circuits • antennas
Janet Meiling Roveda
Quntao Zhuang
PhD, University of California, Berkeley
PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Professor
smart grid and smart home • VLSI systems for biomedical applications • multicore design
Assistant Professor
quantum information processing • quantum optics
2021 Magazine | 31
Amazing Alumni Inventions and Internships
Irmak Aykin has loved inventing things since she was a child, so engineering was a natural choice for her when she began her undergraduate studies in Turkey. “Seeing so few women in STEM fields was a source of motivation for me,” said Aykin, who went on to earn her ECE PhD degree at the University of Arizona in 2020. “I wanted to prove to everyone that women can do great in computer engineering.”
Irmak Aykin, PhD, 2020
Aykin chose to pursue graduate school at UArizona because of the strong, synergistic ECE faculty members.
“The brainstorming sessions we had were definitely some of the highlights of my time there,” she said. “The department was also very encouraging of inventions and patent applications.” The department’s industry connections also led to Aykin completing several internships, where she strengthened her technical and communications skills while learning more about what to expect from her future career. Today, she works in wireless research and development at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “My advice to current engineering students would be to do at least one internship during your studies,” Aykin said. “It helps you way more than you can imagine. You get to see the side of engineering that is not written in the books, and helps you become a well-rounded engineer.”
Drawn in by Research
After studying electronics and communications as an undergraduate student in India, Aakarsh Rao came to the University of Arizona to pursue his graduate degree. He says he was drawn in by the variety of courses and by the research of Professors Jerzy Rozenblit and Roman Lysecky. Rao received his MS degree in 2015 and is slated to graduate with his PhD degree in spring 2021.
to teaching students, to building nourishing relationships with professors and peers.”
“My academic life at ECE has helped me grow in every way,” he said. “The experiences were gratifying – from conducting research on a high-tech surgical training system or medical device security,
Rao’s advice to current students: “Persevere, build nourishing connections, take advantage of everything the university has to offer, and enjoy the educational experience at ECE!”
He added that the wide range of careeroriented courses and research opportunities at UArizona prepared him for his career. His research in software security research landed him a job at Microsoft Corp., building threat protection algorithms with the security and compliance team.
Aakarsh Rao, MS, 2015
Class Projects to Apple Products
Yashika Sharma heard a lot about the University of Arizona and its faculty while pursuing her master’s degree in RF, microwave and photonics at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. So she was thrilled to come to Tucson for her PhD in ECE, and to graduate in 2020. She counts her class projects – which helped her gain hands-on experience in a variety of topics – among the most exciting and challenging experiences of her time at UArizona. She also enjoyed the interdisciplinary research work required for her thesis, which involved both antenna design and machine learning. “The university provided me with the skillset and knowledge that was beneficial for me in finding a great job,” said Sharma.
“My journey there helped my intellectual growth, and I will be forever grateful for this.” Sharma is currently working as an RF hardware design engineer at Apple Inc., where she designs and characterizes the wireless circuitry used in iPhones. “My advice for current students is to Yashika Sharma, PhD, 2020 set your goals first, even if they are short-term, and work hard to achieve those goals,” she said. “It’s never sure if you will see the results immediately, but the effort you put into it will always eventually help you.”
32 | The University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
High-Powered Utility Career
University of Arizona engineering degrees are powerful. For Mike Hummel, who earned his bachelor’s degree in ECE in 1982, “power” has a meaning all its own. Hummel is the general manager and CEO of the Salt River Project, which provides water and power to more than a million people living in central Arizona. Initially interested in computer engineering, Hummel did an internship at Tucson Electric Power after his sophomore year at UArizona and was intrigued by the many career paths available at a utility company. “I also found it really appealing, after thinking about computers for so long, that you can actually see what you’re designing and building,” he said. “It’s very physical and rewarding to design a substation and then to see it get built.” Over the course of his career, he’s learned a few key lessons.
Alumna Named CEO of UNS Energy
UNS Energy, the parent company of Tucson Electric Power, has named Susan M. Gray as its chief executive officer. Gray earned her bachelor’s degree in ECE from the University of Arizona in 1996 and is an enthusiastic Wildcat fan. Gray previously served as the company’s president and chief operating officer, and has succeeded CEO David G. Hutchens, who is also an alum of the college, having earned a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering. Susan M. Gray, BS, 1996
“It’s a great privilege to lead a company
A Veteran’s Journey
While he was earning his bachelor’s degree at the University of Arizona, 2nd Lt. Ryan Raettig wasn’t just balancing homework and his job as a math tutor. The Air Force veteran was also juggling a transition back to civilian life and leadership responsibilities in the Air Force ROTC. “I have nothing but good things to say about UArizona,” said Raettig, who graduated in 2019. “From my experience, the professors are excellent, and the student population is really accepting of veterans. I know a lot of veterans, when they go to school, maybe feel out of place. But I always felt acceptance.” UArizona was among only three institutions recognized with an Engineering Excellence for Veterans Award from the American Society of Engineering Education Military and Veterans Division in 2019. When Raettig visited campus while stationed at Davis-
Chief among them: Diverse teams make for better problem-solving, and engineering is a good foundation for most any career. Hummel also has an MBA from Arizona State University, but he says his engineering education is as valuable to being a leader as anything he learned in the master’s program. Mike Hummel, BS, 1982
“It causes you to think about how you address a problem, and how you really define a problem before you try to solve it,” he said. “That’s so fundamental to the engineering discipline, and it really is fundamental to what we do as CEOs, or, in fact, what we do in life.” Hummel has served on the University of Arizona Foundation Board of Trustees and the College of Engineering Industry Partner Board.
that means so much to so many people,” Gray said in a UNS Energy press release. “Our employees are incredibly dedicated to providing safe, reliable service for our customers and supporting our communities as we invest in new energy technologies and build a cleaner, greener grid.” Gray, who has long been a champion for women in the often male-dominated utility industry, will be the first woman to lead the company. “Susan is an inclusive, collaborative leader who produces amazing results by tapping into the talents of every member of the team,” Hutchens said. “She knows and understands our company, people and culture and is well-prepared to execute our aggressive transition to cleaner energy.”
Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona, he liked it so much that he transferred from active duty to the reserves to attend full time, choosing ECE because it was similar to the avionics work he’d enjoyed in the Air Force. Today, Raettig is a commissioned engineering officer at the Air Force Institute of Technology, where he’s earning a master’s degree in ECE. He also won the AFCEA Major General Robert Ryan Raettig, BS, 2019 E. Sadler ROTC Award, an honor given to only one cadet per year nationally. 2021 Magazine | 33
Student Spotlight Capturing First Black Hole Image When he was growing up in Iran, Arash Roshanineshat spent a lot of time looking up at the sky while his uncle and cousin pointed out constellations. Now he does his stargazing with the high-powered telescope of the Steward Observatory and as part of the global Event Horizon Telescope, or EHT, team. The team captured the first image of a black hole and announced its discovery in 2019.
Roshanineshat is a doctoral student majoring in ECE and minoring in astronomy at the University of Arizona.
Dan Marrone, an associate professor in astronomy and Roshanineshat’s adviser.
Arash Roshanineshat
“I was looking for a graduate student or postdoctoral researcher who had the background to really lead this, and he seemed almost perfectly suited for the role,” said
A Love of Learning and Teaching
Jennifer Nadolski
The EHT project involves combining the powers of telescopes all over the planet to capture data from space – about 5,000 trillion bytes of data, or enough to keep a playlist of high-quality MP3 files playing for 4,700 years. Roshanineshat is working on algorithms to process and recording the data before passing it on to astronomers.
Jennifer Nadolski chose to study computer engineering after getting involved in her high school robotics team and discovering a love for electronics and programming. Her father, also an electrical engineer, is another source of inspiration. As part of the department’s accelerated master’s program, Nadolski is slated to earn her BS in spring 2021 and her MS a year after that.
“I would like to teach programming courses at some point in my career, and I believe a master’s degree will be beneficial for both that goal and for entering the technical industry,” said
Representing First Class of Herbold Fellows
Michael Bullock earned his bachelor’s degree in ECE at the University of Arizona in spring 2020. In the fall, he began his PhD in the same subject as part of the college’s inaugural class of Herbold Fellows. Sponsored by Bob Herbold, former chief operating officer of Microsoft Corp., and Patricia Herbold, who served as a U.S. ambassador to Singapore, the Herbold Fellowship is providing $10,000 each to five engineering graduate students. The fellows have a shared focus on applying computer science and data sciences to a range of subjects. Bullock is researching covert communications over quantum channels. The ability for two parties to communicate without a
“EHT is the type of project that includes scientists from many backgrounds: astronomers, chemical engineers and chemists, electrical engineers, computer scientists,” Roshanineshat said. “I am really happy to be a part of this collaboration, and I’m determined to do my best to ensure I make the most of the opportunity.”
Nadolski. “My dream is to return to academia and teach at a high school level, so I could hopefully inspire students the same way I was inspired in high school.” Nadolski is president of the Arizona Autonomous Vehicles Club, in which students design and build an autonomous flight system for an international competition, and secretary of the Society of Women Engineers, a professional society that empowers women in STEM careers. She’s also the lead undergraduate lab assistant for a computer programming course and has completed internships at General Dynamics Mission Systems and Microsoft Corp. After graduation, Nadolski hopes to find a career in the tech or defense industry before moving on to teaching.
potentially dangerous third-party knowing about it is useful in many applications. Bullock said he believes these communications are especially critical in organizations of social unrest against tyrannical governments. “This award will enable the freedom to work independently on research,” Michael Bullock said Bullock, who was also the ECE Department’s 2020 outstanding senior. “With this independence, I plan to pursue research in the intersection of quantum communications and sensing with a focus on covertness and/or entanglement assistance.”
34 | The University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Shifting From Robotic Surgery to Formula One Racing University of Arizona ECE student Andre Schreiber grew up watching television shows about cars with his dad and playing around with computers. The Arizona native has followed Formula One racing, the highest class of single-seater auto racing in the world, for as long as he can remember. In late 2019, he won a coveted spot in an elite racing and automotive program overseas.
During his sophomore year, he began working with Jerzy Rozenblit, a University Distinguished Professor of ECE and surgery who develops computer-guided training for minimally invasive surgery.
Schreiber spent 2020 with the INFINITI Engineering Academy in the U.K., training in the automotive and motorsport industries. About 3,000 people applied for seven positions, which were awarded by region, and Schreiber was up against more than 350 applicants in the United States.
As an undergraduate research assistant in the Model Based Design Laboratory, Schreiber conducted simulations for laparoscopic surgery. He says Andre Schreiber robotic surgery and vehicle programming are actually quite similar.
“I got to compete against some of the best engineers in the country, and just being able to work with them was a great privilege,” said the Honors College student. Schreiber was just 17 when he started studying at UArizona.
Developing Skills in Disney College Program
Sofia Gamez hails from the small border town of Nogales, Arizona, and the University of Arizona was always her No. 1 choice among in-state institutions. Thanks to the support of several scholarships – including a Wildcat Excellence Award – she began her first year as a chemistry major. However, she quickly found she was more interested in computer programming, and she switched her major to ECE.
Sofia Gamez
Gamez has worked as an administrative
“It’s only contributed to his education,” Rozenblit said. “It’s a wonderful application of what he’s learned here, and he used his skills in top-tier automotive racing.”
assistant at the UArizona National Center for Interpretation throughout most of her undergraduate career, but she spent the spring 2019 semester in Florida as a member of the Disney College Program. She worked full-time at Disney’s Pop Century Resort, while also attending STEM seminars and networking with Imagineers and other STEM cast members. “The basic yet most important skills of leadership, teamwork, and communication skills I developed as an engineering student most definitely prepared me to work at Walt Disney World,” she said. Her favorite memories as an ECE student involve working in the labs. “From building and analyzing circuits to programming FPGA and Arduino boards, troubleshooting and successfully compiling a project brought me so much joy,” she said. Gamez plans to graduate in May 2021 with an ECE BS degree and minors in mathematics and Spanish.
Invest in the Success of ECE Students, Faculty & Programs
Support from alumni, friends and corporate partners is key to ensuring continued excellence in the University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Generous contributions not only support student scholarships, but they also fund academic programs and research projects and help the department attract and retain prominent faculty.
To donate, visit ece.engineering.arizona.edu/give-today or call 520.621.6193.
SCAN ME
2021 Magazine | 35
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36 | The University of Arizona Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering