Faculty and Staff Highlights Shekhar Bhansali named a 2018 Fellow of AAAS
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) named Shekhar Bhansali, Alcatel-Lucent professor, interim director of FIU’s School of Electrical, Computer and Enterprise Engineering and chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, a fellow of AAAS for his significant contributions to microfluidics, care sensors and wearable sensors, and to the enhancement of underrepresented minority college students. Bhansali’s research focuses on bio-sensing, bioengineering, oceanographic sensing, materials science, micro/ nanotechnology and alternative energy. He is committed to encouraging students from all backgrounds to pursue STEM degrees. Bhansali serves as the co-director for the Bridge to the Doctorate Fellowship Program, funded by the National Science Foundation. The program was created to recognize the importance of having a diverse student body population that will transition into the workforce, by providing minority students with a full-tuition scholarship, annual living stipend and mentorship. For more information on Bhansali and the Bio-MEMS and Microsystems Laboratory, visit mems.fiu.edu
Electrical engineer wins EMTS 2019 Young Scientist Award
At the 2019 International Radio-Scientific Union (URSI) Commission B International Symposium on Electromagnetic Theory (EMTS), Satheesh Bojja Venkatakrishnan, research assistant professor, was selected as the recipient of the EMTS 2019 Young Scientist Award for his paper titled, RF Cancellation of Coupled Transmit Signal and Noise in STAR across 1 GHz Bandwidth. His research focuses on improving the achievable isolation and suppressing transmit noise in Simultaneous Transmit and Receive (STAR) systems over wide bandwidth. This is required to enable transmission and reception at the same frequency and time. As a result, this could potentially double the spectral efficiency, which is needed for future wireless applications, as currently there is limited spectrum available for commercial applications that are being developed like smart device communications. Venkatakrishnan’s paper will be published in the March 2020 issue of the URSI journal, The Radio Science Bulletin.
We say farewell to an outstanding staff member
Congratulations to Pat Brammer on her retirement! Brammer began working at FIU in 1990 when the bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer engineering were launched and the College of Engineering & Computing (at the time named “Engineering and Design”) obtained its first U.S. patent. She has been essential in the continuous success of the department and college. We wish her all the best after 29 years of dedicated service at FIU as a program specialist.
New Faculty Mehdi Hatamian Distinguished university professor Hatamian’s areas of expertise include biomedical electronics and cancer screening technologies, VLSI signal processing and digital communication. He is the founder and chief executive officer of 2Pi-Sigma Corporation, a company specializing in next generation cancer detection technologies.
Haneen Aburub Instructor Aburub started her career at FIU as a postdoctoral research associate, where she worked on developing solutions to keep the future smart grid resilient under the high penetration of renewable resources. Her research areas include renewable energy integration, energy storage optimization and cybersecurity.
Arjuna Madanayake Associate professor Madanayake started his faculty career at the University of Akron, where he formed the Advanced Signal Processing Circuits Lab. At FIU, he leads the RF, Analog and Digital Lab. His research areas are wireless communications, array processing and analog computing.
Gustavo Chaparro-Baquero Instructor Chaparro-Baquero received his doctoral degree in electrical and computer engineering from FIU and worked as a graduate assistant at the Advanced Real-Time and Computing Systems (ARCS) Lab. As an instructor, Chaparro-Baquero teaches software, digital electronics and circuit analysis courses.
Mohammad Ashiq Rahman Assistant professor Rahman’s research area primarily covers security and dependability problems for both general networks and cyber-physical systems (CPS). With cyber systems, he conducts research on security metrics and network security. Rahman is the director of FIU’s Analytics for Cyber Defense (ACyD) Research Lab.
Srikanth Namuduri Instructor After working at Cummins for seven years, Namuduri transferred to FIU to join academia. At Cummins, he worked as an analytics project manager managing the creation of reporting dashboards and data analytics. His areas of expertise are machine learning, artificial intelligence and Internet of Things.